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The Three Stages of 
Clarinda Thorbald 


WILLIAM T. HAMILTON, Jr. 











/ 

The Three Stages of 
Clarinda Thorbald 

BY 

/ 

WILLIAM T. HAMILTON, Jr . 1 



Publishers DORRANCE Philadelphia 

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Copyright 1924 
Dorrance & Company Inc 



Manufactured in the United States of America 

FFR 27 ’24 - x 

©Cl A778180 £*» 1 




V 


To my family 









CONTENTS 


Page 

Stage One.13 

Stage Two.. 89 

Stage Three.155 











The Three Stages of 
Clarinda Thorbald 


STAGE ONE 













The Three Stages of 

Clarinda Thorbald 

I 

In the soft light of an afternoon sun, Clarinda 
sat in an old chair and read a thesis upon love, 
and she found set forth in this thesis that with¬ 
out love the world would not go around. 
Further, without love life would be hut dross 
and hideous calamity. She also found therein 
that men have died from love, and women have 
languished in torments when it was un¬ 
requited. 

Even though she was filled with apprehension 
as she read, she did not wish to eschew love, 
but was glad she was suffering from its effects. 

She imagined that her own particular love 
was different from the love anybody had ever 
been consumed with, and she was glad in her 
heart she was suffering from its effects. She 
perceived it affected the glint of her hair, and 
she even thought it affected the beauty of her 
smile. She knew it affected her eyes, and gave 
an added color to her cheeks. 

13 


14 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


At times when she sat by herself, she was 
filled with fear that the object of her love might 
fail her—that what she felt might be a dream 
and not a real condition. 

At times this trepidation was so overwhelm¬ 
ing she became frightened. It might occur 
that she would awake from her blissful state 
and find it was all a mistake. She even thought 
that it might not have happened—that the man 
she loved upon a certain night, at a certain 
place had whispered in her ear that without her 
love life would be a void. 

Clarinda was young and believed in love, and 
she had not found out that love dies even as 
the body, and often becomes stale, that more 
than often it passed from the soul as the miasma 
from the fetid lake. 

Nevertheless, from the time love awoke in her 
heart, and the man had whispered in her ear 
and held her close to his breast, day followed 
day. 

Day followed day and the hour of her wed¬ 
ding came, and never once did time stand still. 
And when it was at hand she awoke with the 
sun and sprang from her bed as light as the 
lark, with her hair hanging in golden strands 
over her shoulders. 

Lightly she ran to the window and pushing 
it open the air rushed in. A luxurious breeze 


CLAEINDA THORBALD 


15 


swayed the tree-tops, and the flowers in the 
fields still covered with dew gave forth untold 
perfume. 

She threw aside the curtains that kept from 
within the glory of the day, and a flood of light 
burst into the room. A great gladness came to 
her heart for there was no cloud in the sky. 
As if to add a better omen, across the garden 
in a sycamore tree a bird trilled its morning 
song. 

A smile soft and sweet crossed her lips and 
gradually expanded into a laugh that vied with 
the song of the bird in the tree. 

Clarinda was thrilled, and her heart went 
out to meet the lover who would come. 

When she turned from the sun and the day 
without and the perfume of the flowers, a tear 
fell down her cheeks cutting its way through 
the pink and white to the floor. 

A fear gripped her. She felt she might be 
giving up more than she was gaining. It came 
to her that she was leaving all that had made 
her. In these surroundings she had grown, 
and now she was arriving at one end of her 
life. Further, she knew she was about to take 
a step into new fields; she would be thrown 
into a new perspective; a new condition of 
which she knew nothing and all these things she 
loved would fade from her and be lost. 


16 CLARINDA THORBALD 

It convulsed her as she felt her youth was 
dead. 

She turned from the things about her and 
looked again across the fields, and thought she 
could see her youth being carried to its last 
resting place upon this beautiful day. To her 
the grave seemed dug, the mourners assembled. 
She could even hear the toll of the bells for its 
interment. Terribly oppressed by the idea she 
withdrew her hand from the curtain and fell 
upon her knees by the side of her bed and 
prayed. 

Clarinda prayed for a long time, then she 
arose from her knees, shook the tears from her 
eyes and throwing a raiment of filmy stuff 
about her made her toilet. 

Her golden hair she piled in many waves 
about her head. A smile broke across her lips 
as she looked at herself in a glass. The fear 
had passed from her heart and left it in a 
tumult of joy. 

Clarinda fitted one pink foot after another 
pink foot into two pink slippers, then she went 
from the room out upon the landing to the head 
of the stairs. 

Below her were banked flowers. Men, bear¬ 
ing other masses ran hither and thither, placing 
them as they were brought in by other men. 

Her mother was already there, a tall woman 


CLAEINDA THORBALD 


17 


with a huge chest. She went from point to 
point giving orders, which were carried ont 
carefully. Her step was slow and labored. 
The silence seemed to Clarinda to presage dis¬ 
aster. 

A lean, lank, old man stepped uncertainly 
from one of the inner rooms, and he gazed help¬ 
lessly about. His face was drawn, and his ap¬ 
pearance betokened sorrow. 

The men who worked moved from place to 
place with noiseless feet. The woman, tom by 
her emotions, continued her labors. The hall 
grew into a bower, while the odor from the 
flowers crept like a blanket over everything. 

Clarinda saw the silver things collected upon 
the tables. Gifts of gold were interspersed. 
She thought them votive offerings. They 
sparkled and glistened in the sun which came 
through the many windows. 

Slowly she came down the stairs and stopped 
in the middle of the hall, and her young, lithe 
body swayed with emotion. 

After she had regained herself she went over 
to her mother and put her arms around her 
neck, pressing a kiss upon her cheek. They 
said nothing. Then she walked over to her 
father and helped him to a chair, and knelt 
down beside him. 


18 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Her father smoothed her hair with his hand 
as if to give her courage. 

She whispered to him in a shaking voice: 
ii This is joy!” 

‘ 1 It is joy,” he answered simply. 

“I am dying!” she exclaimed still whisper¬ 
ing. “I am already dead! Look! Look! 
Father!” She raised her hand and pointed 
toward the men who moved about. ‘ ‘ The men , 91 
she continued, “are decorating the rooms for 
the corpse. I—I—am the corpse!” and close 
she shrank to the side of the chair. ‘ 4 My youth 
is dead!” Clarinda’s eyes filled with tears and 
her body shook from her emotion. 

Her father raised her head and tilting her 
face looked into her eyes. 

“No, Clarinda, you are not dead. You are 
not a corpse. The rooms are not decorated for 
your death. It is done for your re-birth. Only 
your youth is dead, and from it has sprung a 
new and wonderful thing.” 

Clarinda rose from her knees and put her 
arms frantically around his neck. 

‘ 4 Save me! Save me! Father! ’ 9 she pleaded. 
“Save me! You are wonderful!” 

‘ ‘ Listen, Clarinda, you mustn’t weep. Rather 
you must be filled with joy, for this is a festival. 
You have come into something new. A great 
responsibility grasps you in its hand. You are 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


19 


re-born. Nature calls you and you go—it is 
inexorable—you cannot help. You must not 
weep; rather you must sing and dance. You 
must array yourself in gold and in silk and go 
forth to meet the bridegroom.’’ 

“Is there no way?” she asked with pleading 
in her voice. 

With terrible finality, he answered “No!” 

Slightly she raised her body, a look of deter¬ 
mination spread over her face, then a trace of 
a smile crept back. The tears were gone. 

“Ah! how I fear,” she said. “And yet, 
Father, I love. I wouldn’t have it changed.” 
Clarinda paused for an instant. “It is true, 
Father, I weep, but my heart is filled with joy. 
I am ready to go forth into the darkness. I 
await the coming of the bridegroom. ’ ’ Clarinda 
stretched her hands out in front of her. “I 
think, Father,” she said with conviction, “that 
he will protect me. I am not sure.” 

She sank back close to the chair and held 
her father’s hand close to her face. 

Gently he smoothed her hair, while the love 
of his age went out to her in her extremity. 
He was torn as she was torn. 


II 

After quite a while Clarinda arose from be¬ 
side her father, and went back up the stairs. 
Her mother continued to stride about the rooms, 
giving orders and placing things as she would 
have them. Clarinda went to prepare herself 
for the sacrifice, which she hoped in her heart 
would not be as terrible as she thought it 
would be. W;hen she was dressed she placed a 
wreath of orange blossoms in her hair. Mo¬ 
hammedan-like her face was covered with a long 
diaphanous veil formed as a yashmac, except 
it was fastened by gold pins. Clarinda dreamed 
of freedom. Presently she came from her room 
dressed as a bride. The house became astir. 
Her wonderful body swayed, lithe and strong, 
with perfect undulations. Her youth was para¬ 
mount. 

Beneath her veil, her face was contorted, a 
deadly pallor overspread it. Her lips trembled 
and her hands shook slightly. She was cold. 

Behind her in unison with her step came im¬ 
maculate maids who bore her long train. As 
she advanced to come down the stairs, brides- 
20 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


21 


maids ran hither and thither, picking up wraps 
and huge bunches of flowers. 

The front doors of the house were thrown 
open as she came the length of the hall, lined 
by lackeys in uniform. Wide stood the doors, 
and the sun of the day in June swept into the 
spaces. It was sweet with the odor of new- 
mown hay and it merged with the perfume of 
the banked-up flowers. The light as it broke 
in cut arabesques on the rugs. 

Clarinda felt the odor of the new-mown hay 
and the warmth of the sun crept into her soul, 
burning spaces in her fear. 

Beyond the open doors at the beginning of 
the garden, at this side of the fountain that 
threw its pellucid waters high into the air, 
stood an automobile furnished with gleaming 
glass sides. 

Clarinda felt the quiet. 

It was broken now and then by an occasional 
laugh, hysterical in its intensity, a giggling 
girl, the sob of an old servant, but these inter¬ 
stices seemed only to accentuate the quiet. 

With effort she moved the length of the hall 
and passed through the open doors. She en¬ 
tered the automobile which was to carry her to 
the church and a new life. Clarinda peered 
through the glass sides and watched the things 
she knew so well swept by her. 


22 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


As the car started off, she heard the thunder¬ 
ing tones of the bells of the church. 

The car finished its journey and stopped sud¬ 
denly at the church. Some one opened the 
door and helped her alight. Clustered about on 
the pavement stood evil, curious people. They 
gaped with envious eyes upon the girl. Some 
in their envy spat upon the stones as if to give 
vent to their wrath. Maliciously they grinned 
or cursed, cruel, bitter jealousy filled their 
souls. They whispered and commented upon 
her beauty and the beauty of her gown. 

Clarinda did not know they asked why. Nor 
that their hands were stretched out in an agony 
to destroy. She did not know they hated her 
and the things she represented. Nor did she 
know they thought it unfair that they should be 
without and she should have all. These people 
shivered in the heat of the day. None of them 
smiled. Clarinda went by them without look¬ 
ing. She did not see their faces, nor did she feel 
their comments upon her and her gown. 

The church swallowed her up. It was all 
dark. Heavy perfume hung in the air and 
the gloom was smitten and torn by lights from 
tall candles upon the high altar. Here and 
there the sun sent a ray through the stained- 
glass windows as if to try to dispel the dark. 
At a distance that seemed miles to Clarinda 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


23 


was the high altar, covered with flowers and 
decorated with the insignia of the church. 

As she looked down the aisle, she saw stand¬ 
ing at the end of the chancel, a priest in gar¬ 
ments of white and of gold. He was looking 
steadily towards her as she approached, and at 
times read from his rubric. A choir of voices in 
the stalls sang and the music reverberated 
through the church. 

At the steps to the chancel, she saw another 
man, who was very tall; behind him stood an¬ 
other clothed in black as the first, like bearers 
at a funeral. As she stopped the bridesmaids 
collected in certain fixed lines about her, mak¬ 
ing bright spots in the gloom. They seemed 
happy, and as envious as the poor who stood 
at the door and cursed her in the sunlight. The 
priest raised his hand and prayed that an in¬ 
finite God might bless this pair. He read with 
deep intonations. 

He was old and grey, his body was bent with 
the weight of his years. Many had come to him 
in their youth. Over thousands he had intoned 
the same prayers and raised his hand in bless¬ 
ing. He had seen these thousands turn and 
walk away to dangers they knew nothing of, 
with hope in their hearts and love in their 
souls. 

Even so, Clarinda walked to dangers she knew 


24 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


nothing of, as thousands had before her, with 
hope in her heart and infinite love in her soul. 
As she turned from the priest, she pushed the 
veil back from her face and gently placed her 
hand upon the arm of the man—a smile was 
on her lips. Calmly she walked towards the 
door of the church, through the searching eyes 
of the host. 

The car bore them swiftly away from the mob 
and their curses. Clarinda crept close to the 
man at her side, and even though she smiled a 
tear fell down her face. Clarinda trembled and 
shook as she tucked herself closer and closer to 
his side. The man put his arm around her, 
drawing her lovely body to him, and wiping 
away the tears as they fell. 

* ‘ It is wonderful , 91 she said tremulously. The 
man laughed. “I am yours / 9 she added. 

“Mine!” he replied. 

“Everything that I was before is done. I am 
someone else. There is no more the old Cla¬ 
rinda. Don’t you think it is wonderful? Think 
of it, a few words, a motion of the hand, a 
prayer intoned by an old man and everything 
that one has been is dead.” 

“Yes, it is wonderful, Clarinda. You are 
mine,” the man replied, and added as an after¬ 
thought, “until death do us part, for richer 
or for poorer; in sickness and in health.” 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


25 


Clarinda withdrew herself from his arms and 
sat straight up in the car. She looked him 
steadily in the face. 

“Let no man put asunder what God hath 
joined together / 9 she said with deep feeling. 

“Those are the words,” he answered. 

Through the streets, over the stones, around 
the comers, through the unheeding many who 
were swept by their own necessities, the car 
rushed as if it wished to deliver itself as quickly 
as possible of the freight it carried. 

The keeper of the lodge, at the beginning of 
the garden stood waiting at the gate. As they 
passed he bowed low to the ground. His face 
was covered with a sinister smile. His hat 
touched the immaculate driveway, as it had 
done when they went out. 

They came to the house. The bridesmaids ar¬ 
rived in various cars and collected about her. 
Her old father took her kindly in his arms. Her 
mother pressed a kiss upon her face. The music 
from the organ at the end of the hall played 
loudly and a childish voice sang alone,‘ ‘ 0 Per¬ 
fect Love.” 

Clarinda took her stand in the middle of a 
long line of people. Other people came in 
hordes, some shook her by the hand and all 
mumbled platitudes. Others kissed her and 
made remarks even as platitudinous. To each 


26 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


she gave a smile and tried in her heart to 
believe this was a day of joy. The beginning 
of a new life of unlimited possibilities. The 
future she hoped was golden in its promise. 

The man to whom she had been married stood 
close by her side; at times, he sought her hand 
and pressed it violently. Visions of a great 
happiness floated harmoniously through his 
mind. He was strong, virile, oppressive in his 
strength. His face was covered with smiles. 
He made answer to all the thoughtless con¬ 
gratulations. He stood beside his new-made 
mother-in-law. Her chest was more prominent 
than ever. It rose and fell as the heaving of 
the sea. He bent and kissed her. 

The father, the old man, twisted with age and 
the struggle he had made with the world, who 
by his fight had made all these things possible, 
took those who came by the hand and answered 
as best he could. Down in his heart he was op¬ 
pressed with anxiety. The thing filled him with 
fear. 

After a long time the line broke and the 
bridesmaids scattered. They chattered and 
laughed, each one in her heart hoping that out 
of this day, might come her chance to follow 
in the footsteps of Clarinda. 

When all the company had assembled and 
they had seethed about and made their compli- 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


27 


ments, the doors were thrown open that led to 
the dining rooms, and the line in which Clarinda 
had stood for so long a time broke. The laden 
tables revealed themselves, burdened with 
mounds of food, in the center of one of them 
a huge cake, and beside it a long, glistening 
knife. 

The men turned with a sigh of relief from the 
lights of the day, the girl and the music, their 
minds going to their stomachs. Everything was 
forgotten in the mad rush for the food. Old 
women growled and the young like predatory 
beasts crowded and secured the best for them¬ 
selves. 

Wines flowed with a lavish hand. Men drank 
as if it were the last drink of their lives. The 
smoke from innumerable cigarettes wreathed 
fantastic festoons over the people. In a short 
while the men and the women moved with un¬ 
certain steps over the polished floors, surfeited 
with the wines. 

Clarinda’s mind was in a whirl. She saw all 
these things, and sensed none of them. After a 
great while she slipped from the crowd and 
wandered with faltering steps from one great 
room of the house to another. Her father fol¬ 
lowed her stealthily as if he feared she might 
like some ethereal thing float into space. 

She made her way from room to room, and 


28 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


as she went she stretched out her hand and 
stroked each object as if she loved it. 

Room after room she visited, up all the stair¬ 
cases she went, slowly and surely, until she 
came to the top of the house. Stopping at an 
oriel window she laid her hand on the frame, 
and bending her head leaned it against her arm. 
Below and beyond she saw the garden stretched 
like a great panorama. The places she loved 
were there below her, where she had played as 
a child. She followed with her eyes the well- 
beloved paths; every flower, every bush she 
could identify; they seemed to carry a special 
significance to her at the moment. Across the 
lake ambient in its blue she saw the jutting 
ledges and barren rocks where she had sat so 
many days and planned her life—what it should 
be; and she found now it was not to be. 

She knew her chimera was shattered. Every¬ 
thing she had planned was gone from her. All 
was changed. Clarinda felt the wrench from 
her old life and the cast into the new. An 
anguish greater than she had ever felt before 
came over her, and with a saddened spirit she 
turned from the window, from the garden, the 
paths and her childhood. As she turned she 
met the eyes of her father, who stood just below 
her in the doorway to the room. 

The old man trembled and was uncertain, his 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


29 


mind was torn with conflicting emotions. He 
felt with the going of Clarinda it was the end, 
the disrupting of the one thing upon which he 
had built all his later life. Yet, he knew in his 
heart, it was but a natural sequence. He had 
built his temple around this slip of a girl. All 
the dreams of his life had been centered upon 
this one thing. He had so wished she would 
always be with him, and that she should gather 
his many years together, place them in his old 
dead hands and fold the curtain, when he should 
at last be placed where moth and rust do not 
corrupt nor thieves break through and steal. 

No one knew with more certainty than he, 
that all things were futile and ephemeral, but 
a passing foment. As he stood below at the 
door and looked up at her with her luxuriant 
life, he knew he would soon go,—and in a short 
while she too would pass. Out of nature 
would come obliteration, and with this obliter¬ 
ation all things he had built crumbled into dust. 
Even the tiny traces he had made upon the 
shifting sands of time would be blotted out. 
His fortunes, his house built of iron and gran¬ 
ite, in a few short strokes of the clock would 
return to their primordial condition; this, 
even, before the grass should grow green above 
him. 

Clarinda moved quickly over to him and 


30 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


clutched his hand, as if she felt the thoughts 
that were going through his mind. The old man 
shook with fear. He feared death, for it was an 
obsession with him. The thought of his last 
hours filled him with an ineffable sorrow, and 
drove the sweat out upon his forehead. And he 
knew death was there, he felt it in his quaking 
limbs and in his unsteady gait. He felt at times 
as if he dwelt with the dead. 

At night when he laid himself down to rest, 
after the multitudinous labors of his day, as 
he closed his eyes, he would see floating before 
him all those whom he had known and with 
whom he had lived and worked and who had 
died. He counted them as they passed before 
him. A cold perspiration as he counted them 
enveloped him while they beckoned to him to 
follow, with their denuded fingers, and laughed 
at his futility. 

He shivered now and clasped Clarinda’s hand 
so firmly that she winced with pain. With an 
effort he gathered himself together. Clarinda 
stretched her arms out to him and put them 
gently around his neck, as if to protect him 
from his fears. 

‘ 4 Father!” she exclaimed. 

“Yes, my child,” he said tremulously. 

They turned and went slowly hand in hand 
down through the halls, from place to place, 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


31 


from room to room, on down to the place of the 
food. 

Together they stood for a few moments at 
the bottom of the staircase and looked at the 
milling crowd. They, even, marked the steps of 
those who had fed and drunk too eagerly, as 
they weaved and staggered from one part of 
the hall to the other. 

They listened to the laughter emphasized by 
the wines. The crowd milled about. The young 
danced to the music. The old sat immovable in 
the chairs, breathing heavily like constrictors. 
They smiled, these overfed, and whispered 
among themselves; they criticised, and in their 
meager hearts their filled stomachs gave 
charity. 

Gradually the hands of the clock, at the head 
of the stairs, moved towards the hour of de¬ 
parture. Unheeding time went on its inexor¬ 
able way—irrepressible, grinding, persistent. 
It ground these minions with malicious certi¬ 
tude. It grinned at the futility of the people, 
the futility of the father, of the groom, the 
bridesmaids, the flowers, and the players of the 
music behind the palms. 

It knew, this inexorable time, that the flowers 
massed upon the tables and hung in festoons 
from every point of vantage, the tables, the 
chairs, even the lights, it would smother in its 


32 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


unending advance. The people who laughed, 
who drank the wines and smoothed each other 
with unmeaning unction, it would in its own 
good process take back and bury in itself. 

Clarinda knew nothing of time, and smiled at 
its progress. She smiled because she had never 
thought. Life to her was but opening up, and 
all of it was to be. 

The man to whom she had been married came 
to her, and together they walked to the table 
that held the huge cake. Her heart turned from 
the things about her and went to him who cut 
the cake as if it were the Gordian knot. He cut 
this thing with the same strength he would cut 
his way to fame. Pride expanded her heart as 
she looked at him. Her father faded from her 
sight, and in his place came a new thing, a big¬ 
ger thing, that resolved itself into youth, hope 
and ambition. She saw her mother float from 
place to place, and she too faded into the things 
that had been, and she had no place in the new 
condition. 

Out of the complacency of her youth she 
looked at her mother’s tired face. Incompletely 
she saw her move from place to place. For 
some reason her spirit revolted against her as 
if she had done her an irreparable wrong, in 
bringing her into the world. 

Clarinda left the crowd and went up the 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


33 


stairs by herself to dress for her departure. 
The man, the groom, youth to her youth, waited 
at the foot of the stairs, and talked rapidly 
with another man who twitted him. They 
laughed occasionally, and he smoked, this bride¬ 
groom, viciously, drawing the smoke from his 
cigarette deep down into his lungs, but the to¬ 
bacco quieted him, and lent him assurance. 

As he waited, he thought that from now on 
in the distant future all things should be his, 
the world, and success lay in the hollow of his 
hand. He would command. Life was no 
mystery, no uncertainty. It was plain and the 
hard road would be marched with ease. 

For months before this wedding, in the still 
watches of the night, he had dreamed of the 
house he would build, and the things he would 
accumulate. He built this house, brick upon 
brick, just as he had dreamed, and he placed 
within its walls each piece of furniture as he 
would have it. In the aurora of it he placed 
Clarinda, for there was no futility rearing its 
head in front of him. 

For a long time he stood with the other man 
at the foot of the staircase, waiting patiently, 
and presently from above came a sound, then 
he turned his eyes and above him stood Clar¬ 
inda in all her lovely fragrance. Clarinda was 
ready, ready to go forth to give herself to 


34 


CLAEINDA THOEBALD 


him, and to take up life as it would come. A 
fearlessness, complete, enveloped her. 

A smile covered her face as she saw him be¬ 
low. Then she placed one tiny foot in front of 
another tiny foot, and her movement was slow 
as if in accordance with the music that played 
in the hall. The man’s heart beat in unison 
with her step, and a smile of pride covered his 
face. The crowd stood back, then, as she 
stopped for a moment, a faint murmur arose, 
the voices gradually becoming louder, until the 
air was rent with a roar of approval. 

Out into the sunlight they went—the man 
and the maid, and at the beginning of the gar¬ 
den they entered the car. The bridesmaids 
threw after them, as they left, old shoes and 
broken slippers as if they hoped to give a happy 
augury to their future. 

Then the two, lost in the car, looked out of 
the windows, and they saw the garden fade out 
of sight. The keeper of the lodge like some old 
gnome bowed low to the driveway, this time as 
if an evil spirit possessed him. He seemed to 
laugh at their youth and their hopes. 

The old keeper knew what futility was, for, 
in his youth he had taken hope in his heart and 
love in his soul. He, as they, had started down 
the roseate path, and it had looked to him as it 
did to them now, as to all the others who had 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


35 


driven through these gates and had come after 
him with hopes in their hearts and love in their 
souls. They, as he, had swept up the ashes 
of their lives upon the hearths of their homes. 
And the winds of adversity had come and 
driven them whirling into space. Out of it all 
they had gathered nothing, nothing remained, 
except bitterness, age and the certainty of 
death. 

Clarinda saw nothing of this. In her ears the 
car sang. The power under the hood sang, 
and the man who drove sang, even the birds fly¬ 
ing in the soft sunlight sang madrigals, and the 
great beams of the sun, as they cut the branches 
of the trees, seemed to be doing so out of pure 
love for her and her joy. The man beside her 
told her of his love—of the thought in him that 
at last he had arrived at the peak of his life. 
He told her that she was the one thing that went 
to complete his happiness. Clarinda trembled 
with joy and nestled closer and closer to him. 
Nothing marred the pleasure she felt. She 
dwelt upon his words he uttered and gloried in 
the softness of his voice. Clarinda held fast to 
the things he said and let them sink into her 
heart. 

Mile after mile went by. They talked but 
little, but he told her again and again of his 


36 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


love, and from time to time he took her gently 
in his arms and kissed her. 

Clarinda forgot everything, except the mo¬ 
ment. 

Late in the night they came to the front of 
a huge house, lit from cellar to garret. In 
front, collected upon the porch, there moved 
about many servants. The heavy doors were 
open and the lights from within cut the night 
as with a two-edged sword. The car stopped. 
Clarinda got out slowly. They walked hand in 
hand into the place. Clarinda gave no thought 
to anything. 

They were served and ate a light repast. 
The clock in the hall struck twelve, the butler 
yawned and the other servants stood about and 
let their faces fall into a curious repose. The 
man arose from his seat. Clarinda passed out 
of the room. In her dressing-room there was a 
hook, and it was open and as she read the open 
page a flush came over her face. 


Ill 

In a short while the urge came, and they 
wished to leave the great house with its lights, 
its vast rooms, its servants and its gorgeously 
costumed lackeys. No volition of their own 
forced them out, but they were compelled to go 
forth and select the soil in which they should 
place the foundations, and upon these founda¬ 
tions, build their own lives. As the spirit 
moved they went from time to time arm in arm, 
and roamed from one street to another, and it 
gave them happiness. Together they discussed 
each department into which they went, its ad¬ 
vantages and disadvantages, and with uncon¬ 
cealed joy, they haggled with persons who dealt 
in these things. 

When it became bruited abroad that they 
were in search of an apartment, agents ap¬ 
peared upon the scene and told them in specious 
exaggeration, how each place that each offered 
was superior to that offered by any other agent. 
The superlative rested in their offerings. 

Clarinda and her husband marched from one 
tiny place to another tiny place, that had tiny 

37 


38 CLARINDA THORBALD 

rooms with even smaller additions called kitch¬ 
enettes. 

Weeks were spent in this occupation, until 
eventually, after many times referring back to 
the judgment of her father and long consulta¬ 
tions with her mother, they found a place upon 
a quiet street. It seemed to them suitable soil 
in which they could sink their tentacles. They 
knew that within these four walls they would 
find happiness, for both of them thought that 
happiness was a matter of location. 

The man as he went with Clarinda listened to 
her discussions, her objections or her periods 
of admiration with enthusiasm, and agreed that 
however small the place might be it made no 
difference as its very smallness precluded the 
possibility of their being far from each other. 
For many nights, before they fled from the 
big house of their honeymoon, they sat late and 
discussed the pleasure it would give them, when 
he should come home after the grind of the 
day’s work and he and she would make plans 
for their betterment. 

As he and Clarinda talked over these mat¬ 
ters, he would rise from his seat beside her and 
pace the floor in great agitation. Up and down 
the big room, from one end to the other he 
paced, and he would draw for her pictures of 
what they should have, of each piece of furni- 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


39 


ture and described of what sort it should be, 
and it gave him pleasure to suggest to her 
how each piece should be placed and to each 
suggestion, Clarinda agreed eagerly. 

“We shall sit upon the divan in the even¬ 
ings, ’ ’ he said, 1 ‘ and you will sit close to me— 
ever so close. Naturally, we shall have a divan. 
We could not do without a thing of that sort—a 
big cushy one. I want it to eat up the room. 
We’ll place it directly in front of the fireplace. 
Don’t you think it will be fine in the winter 
evenings with the fire going lazily up the chim¬ 
ney? Just you and I there together with the 
big world shut out.” 

“And behind the divan, we shall have a tall 
lamp,” she broke in. “What do you think 
of a pink shade?” 

“Just finishes the picture as I have it in 
mind. By all means a pink shade, ’ ’ he replied 
enthusiastically. 

“I do so like clocks. Shall we have a clock? 
You see I could watch the clock, and then I 
should know when you were coming and maybe 
it would not be so hard to wait, ’ ’ said Clarinda 
with a plaintive tone in her voice, as if she al¬ 
ready felt the sorrow of his absence. 

“Of course we shall have to have a clock—a 
chime clock. One of the kind that strikes differ- 


40 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


ent tones for each quarter of an hour. You 
know the kind I mean,’’ he assented quickly. 

And so they built their castle and fitted it 
with the things they thought they would love, 
and they did not know it was all foolish and 
futile. 

They moved into the spot they had selected, 
and adapted and placed the furniture they had 
chosen. The divan, for it was upon the divan 
all their future lives were to be planned, was 
in the room, and it took up a lot of space just as 
they thought it would. Behind the divan they 
placed a tall lamp with a pink shade that sent 
an even glow over them and threw no shadows, 
and Clarinda liked the dim light. When the 
man had gone in the mornings to his place of 
business, she would cuddle herself on the divan 
and her mind gloated upon the things about 
her, and her happiness was complete. 

Then her friends came—the bridesmaids, and 
the others, those who had stood about and been 
fed, and who drank the wine to excess and 
had gone unsteadily over the polished floors; 
they sat upon the divan, and Clarinda thought 
they desecrated it; they rushed from one tiny 
room to the other and peered with malicious 
eyes into the kitchenette; and they smiled 
among themselves at the tininess of the place, 
and gave their unerring judgment on its possi- 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


41 


bilities. Clarinda’s mother soon came, and she 
turned the things about and bemoaned with her 
husband the meagerness of the setting and of 
the furnishings. 

Clarinda watched her mother move about the 
place as she put things as she would have them, 
and when she was gone Clarinda moved them 
back again to their original positions. The man 
laughed and spoke jestingly of her mother’s 
taste. In her heart her mother pitied her. But 
the old man was proud of Clarinda and pres¬ 
aged for her all the things he so desired she 
should have. He did not forget the doleful 
street, the poorness of the surroundings, and 
the flimsiness of his first home. His start he 
remembered was so much poorer than Clar¬ 
inda’s. Yet he could not forget the pride and 
the pleasure he had derived from it, and his 
heart beat with infinite joy then, as Clarinda’s 
beat now. 

Now the round of life was upon them. The 
man and the maid fell into the swing. The nest 
was finished, its sides were put together with 
infinite care. Each twig was intertwined with 
every other twig, in order that it might be 
strong and withstand the assaults of wind and 
weather. The man looked on with pride, and 
Clarinda was filled with unbounded faith. 

Never before had she experienced such pleas- 


42 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


ure, even in the luxury of her father’s house, 
as when she sat in the mornings at her own 
table with her husband, and he at the lower end 
while the trim little maid brought their break¬ 
fast. 

Clarinda loved the silver as it stood in front 
of her, and derived a sensation of sweetness 
from her surroundings, as she asked whether he 
would have sugar in his coffee. She knew per¬ 
fectly what he liked, but there was something 
wonderful to her to ask each morning with the 
same anxiety. It pleased her to pour each 
morning, each cup of coffee, but she did so 
with perturbation. Always she asked whether 
it was just right, and always he answered it 
could not be more perfect. Her heart was filled 
with apprehension, for it was possible she might 
make a mistake—it might not be just right. 

Each morning at a precise time, the man left 
the house, and each morning he kissed her good¬ 
bye and held her close to his heart. Each morn¬ 
ing she went to the door and watched him go 
down the stairs, then she rushed to the window 
to watch him wave his hand to her before he 
disappeared around the corner, and she smiled 
and was happy. 

Then one day in June, just as her wedding 
had taken place upon a day in June, the day 
broke as usual, and the sun came up. The early 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


43 


morning breezes fluttered the trees. The usual 
breakfast had been partaken of. Clarinda had 
asked the same questions and had received the 
same replies. The trim little maid had done her 
duty. Life seemed as happy and as justifiable 
as ever. 

The man arose from his seat and rushed 
from the room. Clarinda stood upon this mem¬ 
orable morning in the doorway as he went away. 
She looked after him as he went rapidly down 
the stairs, and slowly she closed the door be¬ 
hind her. 

Clarinda felt the negation of the man's serv¬ 
ice. She craved the kiss he had given her each 
morning. She did not sing when she closed the 
door, nor did she rush to the window and wait 
for him to pass the corner. From that moment 
a wound had been made in her heart and the 
blood dripped from the gash. 

The man did not fail to kiss his wife through 
malice. Kisses had simply grown stale in his 
mouth, and now seemed to him a useless ob¬ 
servance. 

He thought of these things as he went along, 
and the more he turned them over in his mind, 
the more convinced he became he had made a 
mistake. The thought of these things remained 
with him all the morning, and for some unex¬ 
plained reason he did not work as well. He 


44 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


lacked interest and the work dragged more than 
ordinarily. Still he argued within himself as 
if to justify his position, that kissing was a 
foolish observance and it ought to be laid aside. 

The day dragged for him, and the clocks in 
the various steeples struck the hours with the 
same indifference as they did every day. The 
crowds on the pavements went by as on every 
other day, with the same intent upon their own 
difficulties. 

Clarinda, left alone in the tiny flat, knew 
something was wrong. Her day was different. 
Her heart was wrong, and tears collected on her 
face many times during the hours that went by. 
And she knew—why. 

The trim little maid came and touched her 
upon the shoulder as she sat cuddled in a corner 
of the divan. She was a Frenchwoman, with a 
white frill about her head. A smile of pity was 
on her lips, as she kindly touched Clarinda, and 
her hand was as light as the breeze without, as 
Clarinda moved and looked up into her face. 

“It is the little things in life, Madame, that 
count ,’’ she said. Clarinda shook her head in 
assent. 

“Iam miserable,” Clarinda replied. 

Clarinda pushed back her golden hair from 
her forehead, wiped the tears from her face, 
and arose from the divan. The maid left as she 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


45 


arose, and went about ber duties. She dusted 
with care and with careful hand replaced the 
flowers in the vases with fresh ones. 

Clarinda stood for a second in the middle of 
the room and then walked slowly over to the 
window and looked pensively down upon the 
street. She wondered if, in all her existence 
the maid had only dusted and swept, if in all 
her existence she had ever worked for anyone 
who was as unhappy as she was. 

All during the day Clarinda did not smile, 
but wandered aimlessly from one part of the 
apartment to the other, and she took no interest 
in the maid nor in the fixing of things for the 
home-coming of the man. But this day went 
like all the others—it glided by with a total in¬ 
difference to her or her unfortunate position. 

Six o’clock came. The day’s work for many 
was over. As the clock on the mantel chimed 
out the hour, the lower entrance door to the 
house opened and then shut with a bang, and 
the man came bounding up the stairs with the 
same haste he had always come. He threw the 
apartment door open and launched his body 
into the room. His face was covered with 
smiles. He was just as wonderful, just as 
strong as when he had gone from her in the 
morning. Clarinda wondered that this could 
be so. 


46 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Clarinda looked at him and sighed. Her 
heart beat painfully, and her breath came in 
deep short gasps. No, he did not kiss her. As 
he stopped in the middle of the room and looked 
about him she went over to him and laid her 
hand upon his shoulder. He still smiled. 

“You forgot something this morning, ,, she 
said slowly as she looked up into his face. 

A quizzical expression went over him. He 
did not appreciate her sorrow. 

“What!” he asked after quite a while. 

“You don’t know!” she asked with astonish¬ 
ment. 

“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “Was it 
my overshoes or my coat!” The man jested 
with her, which added to the pain she had 
suffered during the day. 

4 4 The maid knows—Peter. ’ ’ 

4 4 The maid knows a great deal, * ’ he answered. 

44 You don’t know! Oh, Peter! Peter!” she 
exclaimed, her voice full of tragedy. 44 You have 
forgotten something even now. ’ ’ 

Peter pressed his hand against his forehead 
as if in deep thought, and he let a light come 
into his eyes. He still jested with her. Of 
course he knew. He took her slim fingers in 
his hand and led her over to the divan. 

“I know, I know,” he said, as if a great 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


47 


light had broken in upon him. ‘ 1 What a foolish 
child you are. ’ ’ 

He took her gently in his arms and pressed 
his lips to hers. Clarinda smiled and tucked 
herself close in his arms. 

“You won’t forget again, Peter V’ she asked. 

“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. 


IV 


Notwithstanding Peter took her in his arms 
and soothed her perturbation and made life 
bloom once more with almost the same bright¬ 
ness it had, the air was permeated with a spirit 
of uncertainty. The effect was impalpable, for 
there existed in Clarinda’s mind a subconscious 
fear that something had crept into her love 
which was foreign—and ate interstices in the 
whole. 

This permeation of her love by some foreign 
thing was evident to her father one evening 
when he dropped in and found Peter absent. 
Peter explained to Clarinda with care the neces¬ 
sity of his going, and tried to convince her that 
it was vital for him to keep an engagement. It 
was so vital, he contended, that it would 
brook no interference, not even the interference 
of the thing which was the sole ambition of his 
life—her happiness. This engagement was of 
such importance that it would not allow hi m to 
sink down upon the divan and take her in his 
arms and tell her of the things he had ac¬ 
complished during the day. Peter kissed her 
as he went out, but Clarinda was upset. 

As the old man came through the door, the 

48 


CLARINDA THOKBALD 


49 


light was dim, and only the single burner in 
the tall lamp shed its uncertain rays about the 
place. He took off his top-coat and placed his 
cane in a corner. Clarinda kissed him and help¬ 
fully settled him in the spot which was Peter’s. 

Her father watched her during these prepa¬ 
rations, and he felt from some reason that the 
atmosphere was filled with uncertainty. Feel¬ 
ing this he gathered himself together and pon¬ 
dered upon the various ways of approach by 
which he might help Clarinda without her sus¬ 
pecting. He knew. It was indicated to him by 
her movements. 

The care with which she fixed things for 
his comfort were an indication and he decided 
to abide his time. 

Presently Clarinda sat herself down beside 
him and leaned her head against his shoulder. 
He put his arm around her and drew her close 
to him. Clarinda sighed with satisfaction. 
They talked. Her father answered her various 
questions. It was a desultory conversation, as 
if both were sparring for an opening. Pres¬ 
ently they sank into silence. 

Many days had passed since Peter, on that 
memorable morning, had gone out of the house 
and had not kissed her, nor held her in his arms, 
nor turned at the corner and waved his hand 
to her. Since then he had forgotten repeatedly, 


50 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


and each time he went from her it left a bitter 
feeling in her heart. Clarinda lived on love, so 
when it was denied her she felt as if something 
vital had been taken out of her life. 

Since they had been married, one winter had 
come and gone, and another was upon them. 
The snow had fallen, and the leaves had gone 
from the trees. The people without had gone 
by unmindful, cold, impersonal—and did not 
feel the tragedy Clarinda was carrying in her 
heart. They rushed by muffled to their chins. 
The days were shorter, and the nights settled 
down upon her earlier. They gave Clarinda a 
longer time to think of her sorrow, and to find 
out how far she had advanced. 

On this winter night, in front of Clarinda 
and her father on the tiny hearth, there burnt 
a tiny fire, that gave a tiny blaze; and it curled 
itself up the chimney and lost itself in the 
orifice. Clarinda settled herself by her father’s 
side, and gazed intently into the fire. She 
pressed his hand tightly in hers, and buried 
her head securely on his shoulder. As she 
looked into the fire, her eyes widened and 
her cheeks became flushed with the heat. 

“All things are futile, aren’t they, father?” 
she asked slowly. Then she lapsed into silence 
as if to think of a proper word or as if a certain 
delicacy restrained her. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


51 


Her father believed that she was about to 
make a confession, and did not answer. 

After a while, she added: “Do people live 
forever? Do you love mother now as when you 
first loved her?” 

“Why do you ask?” 

“I have a wonderful reason—tell me?” she 
demanded. 

A curious expression came over his face, half 
serious, half amused. Carefully taking his hand 
from hers and lifting her golden head from his 
shoulder, he arose from the divan. 

The pillow she had placed behind his head 
slipped noiselessly to the floor, and walking a 
few steps, he turned his back to the fireplace 
and took his stand in the middle of the rug. 

Judicially he placed is hands behind his back 
and looked down upon her. 

“You will learn,” he answered cryptically. 

11 What do you mean? ’’ she asked in a puzzled 
tone. 

“There is wisdom, Clarinda, that comes to 
the old. This wisdom is sometimes uncanny in 
its analytical possibilities.” 

“You don’t reply to my questions,” she said 
as she turned the full light of her eyes upon 
him. “Do you still love mother as when you 
began?” 


52 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


‘‘You asked me that before, and I told you,” 
he answered slowly. Then as an afterthought 
added, “What is the trouble?” 

“I have no trouble,” she rejoined hastily. 
Then she went on as if she had decided to bare 
her soul to him. 

“I will tell you, try to follow me.” 

“All right, go ahead with your tragedy,” 
he replied banteringly. 

“Do not laugh—be serious! You don’t know 
how vital this thing is to me. ’ ’ 

Clarinda moved her feet in a shuffling man¬ 
ner. ‘ ‘ I believe, ’ ’ she went on seriously, ‘ ‘ that 
the flat is too small. It doesn’t give sufficient 
leverage. We live too much upon each other. 
It is true I love—I love everything in it. From 
the maid to the kitchenette. I have been so 
happy in it. Of course, for me it is not too 
small. I like it for that very reason. You can’t 
imagine how delightful it has been for me to 
sit here with no one but Peter, with not a sound 
from the outside—just Peter and I alone. 
Don’t you think love is queer? I mean queer in 
its effects on different kinds of people ? ’ ’ 

As she spoke her father did not interrupt 
her, but his eyes followed every expression of 
her face. 

‘ ‘ Peter and I, ’ ’ she went on, ‘ ‘ have lived here 
more than a year. ’ ’ A combative tone came into 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


53 


her voice. ‘ 4 Peter is doing well. But then that 
is Peter. Of course, Peter is doing well. How 
could he do otherwise? You don’t know Peter, 
Father, as I know him. Peter is wonderful. ’ ’ 

“Then you are pleased with Peter?” her 
father said with a smile. 

Clarinda did not answer his question. It 
struck her mind as frivolous. She continued as 
if no interruption had taken place. “Do you 
know, Father, Peter is cruel? I’ve been very 
happy here. A great change has come about I 
find, and many many times I’ve sat here in this 
corner and tried to analyze the reason for the 
change. I wonder whether it is my fault or 
whether it is just the ordinary course of human 
feeling. I ask myself whether I have failed, or 
has he failed? Is love only a satisfaction of a 
certain kind of natural law or is it a thing that 
can be sustained, I mean carried on forever? 
I wonder to myself whether there is really such 
a thing as love, and if not, what is it that pro¬ 
duces such wonderful sensations? If after all it 
is only a myth. Why should people be sorry, or 
glad, or pleased at the approach of any one per¬ 
son? Why should I not be as happy, if love 
does not exist, with John Jones or John Smith 
or any other person? Anyway there is a great 
change. Peter has changed, I have changed. 
Everything is different. I can’t understand. ’ 1 


54 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Her father still smiled. He did not grasp 
how deeply she felt, nor could he understand 
precisely the conclusion she was drawing. He 
thought her a trifle incoherent. He was still 
satisfied, however, if she were given time he 
would find out. He remained silent and kept 
his eyes fastened upon her. 

‘‘Listen, Father! Follow me with care. It 
is very difficult for me to explain exactly.” 
Clarinda wept and bent over in her grief, then 
murmured with intensity. ‘ 1 Can’t you under¬ 
stand? Can’t you understand?” 

Her father saw her body shaken with emo¬ 
tion and the tears steal between her fingers. He 
was terribly oppressed. 

He advanced a few steps and laid his hand 
gently upon her head, his touch was sympa¬ 
thetic. She looked up at him with her tear- 
stained face, and hope entered her heart. 

“Poor little Clarinda,” he began with tender¬ 
ness in his voice. ‘ ‘ I know your difficulty. Let’s 
talk it over.” He sat down in the corner of 
the divan by her side. 

Clarinda fixed the stool again under his feet 
and replaced the pillow under his head, then 
she tucked herself into the bend of his arm 
and Clarinda’s golden head lay in comfort on 
his shoulder, a feeling of bliss and security in 
her heart. She waited for him to speak. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


55 


“Now let’s see if I can analyze this terrible 
condition. You would be surprised how observ¬ 
ant I am,’’ he began. ‘‘You think Peter doesn’t 
love you as he did. You, in your silly mind have 
let your imagination get the better of you. This 
is probably what happened: Peter in the press 
of his duties has neglected you, or you think he 
has, which is about the same thing in the end. 
This neglect was not in itself a great matter 
nor of much importance, but was probably in 
some little attention he gave you.” 

Clarinda listened intently. 

“Let’s say for example, that he broke some 
custom that he had built up—a custom that had 
come to be part of your life, and that you looked 
forward to as much as you do, for instance, to 
your fruit in the morning. You have deduced 
from this infraction that he doesn’t love you as 
in the beginning.” 

Clarinda opened her eyes in astonishment. 
He was placing before her clearly, exactly what 
she had wanted to tell, but could not. With a 
few words he arrived at the bottom of her 
trouble. Clarinda shook her head and tucked 
herself closer to his side. 

“How wonderful you are, Father,” she whis¬ 
pered. ‘ 6 How exactly you tell me what I wanted 
to explain.” 

“Clarinda,” he went on, “you probably don’t 


56 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


know that as a rule men love intensely. Their 
love is a curious stable condition of mind. It 
consumes them. It becomes part of their fibre. 
You’ll find out later in life, when youVe had 
greater experience, that men are monagamous, 
with polygamous inclinations. That statement 
is a bit involved. More than likely you don’t 
get what I mean quite clearly. Of course, 
Clarinda, I am speaking about ordinary men, 
the right-thinking and the right-doing sort.” 
He stopped for an instant as if deliberating, 
and finally went on: 

‘ 1 Still, Clarinda, even with the sort I have in 
mind, they are curious, because they are hu¬ 
man. They build the foundations of their lives 
with no uncertainty. After it is done, they 
arrive at the idea that what they have built is 
stable. They forget. Men, my dear child, are 
essentially constructionists. It doesn’t follow 
because they are complacent that they love any 
the less. It might be advanced really that they 
love with fiercer intensity. The reason for this 
is that men are removed only a slight degree 
from the animal. It is true they are covered 
with a slight veneer which is called civilization. 
Just like animals, anything that comes into 
their lives becomes part of them. As I have 
indicated, love gets into their blood, bone and 
sinew. Peter loves you just the same. Dis- 


CLAEINDA THORBALD 


57 


abuse your mind of this idea that he doesn’t 
love you. It is all foolishness. All your fears 
are founded on sand. This condition is not 
your fault. It is the natural course that love 
always follows and nearly all men arrive at 
the same end.” 

Clarinda sat very still and listened intently. 
In her heart as she had always done she felt 
her father was the greatest being in the world. 
Even at times greater than Peter. This admis¬ 
sion cost her much, but for years he had been 
her bulwark. Upon his judgment her life had 
been founded. During her young days she had 
looked upon him as an oracle. And now in this 
crisis, after he had spoken she was sure he was 
just as she thought. 

“Your situation is clear to me,” he contin¬ 
ued. “Suppose I draw you a picture of your 
position.” He paused for a moment. “I have 
in mind what occurred. Let us suppose for ex¬ 
ample, that every morning when Peter left you 
before he went out of the door he kissed you. 
You lived on that kiss until he came back in the 
evening. It might be before he went away he 
held you for an instant in his arms and patted 
your lovely head. And then after he had gone 
and had gotten out on the street, you ran to 
the window and waved your hand to him as he 
went around the corner. You treasured that 


58 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


final wave. Peter is only a man. Peter is not 
a bad sort. Now, how is that for the first part 
of my picture ? ’’ 

“Father! Father!” she exclaimed. “How 
wonderful you are.” 

“Let’s go further with our picture,” he be¬ 
gan again. “Now what did you do? Being 
inexpressibly foolish, on that very first day 
this terrible thing happened here is what I see. 
In this picture you are a stricken thing. Slowly 
you go back into the room, with the weight of 
the world upon you. The house is all drab. 
You don’t rush to the window. Oh, no, not you, 
instead you weep and the tears roll down your 
face. You feel right then as if all the world 
has fallen apart, and there is only a great void. 

“In your misery you felt, for this was real to 
you, sick at heart. You threw yourself down 
upon the divan and sank into a terrible condi¬ 
tion. This lasted throughout the day, until 
Peter came home. When he saw you, so sad 
and dreary and your face be-streaked with 
tears, he took you in his arms—and right then 
—the sun came back. Your heart beat with joy. 
How’s that, Clarinda ? ’ ’ 

“But why should it happen?” Clarinda 
burst forth. “Why should Peter change? I 
am just the same. I am just as young. Just 
as beautiful. Peter always says I am beautiful. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


59 


My physical self is just the same. I don’t be¬ 
lieve I am any the less attractive or less appeal¬ 
ing to his man’s side. Peter forgets. He for¬ 
gets often. Why should he feel that he can go 
out and leave me as he does? Why should he 
not kiss me every morning? I don’t forget.” 

‘ 1 All that is true, Clarinda, ’ ’ her father went 
on. ‘ i The reason for its happening, I have ex¬ 
plained. But there is something else. It is a 
curious psychological fact. Women are dif¬ 
ferent from men, for the reason that nature has 
so provided. I can’t answer this question. It 
would take too long, and even if I did, you 
might not understand the fine distinction I 
would wish to draw. There are so many shades, 
so many complexes, so many difficulties in the 
way of an understandable explanation. The 
question is too deep for me to discuss. You 
don’t have a proper grasp of the human factor 
as it is applied to me. The shadows, Clarinda, 
upon your life are all imaginary. They don’t 
exist really. ’ ’ 

The conversation died, and Clarinda sat with 
her father in complete silence. She endeavored 
to make him say more, but he would not. He 
looked into the fire and watched the flame go up 
the chimney. The clock on the mantel struck 
the hours musically, and the wind without blew 
with an angry insistence. But Clarinda was 


60 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


at peace. Her head was clear and she saw dis¬ 
tinctly into the future. The seconds of time 
went into minutes and the minutes grew into 
hours. The persistent ticking of the clock was 
at last broken by the sound of rapidly ap¬ 
proaching footsteps, as if they bore someone in 
great haste. Then the door opened and Peter 
bounded into the room and filled it completely. 

“It is late,” said Peter breathlessly. “But 
IVe a good excuse. I’ve done well tonight and 
it is all for you, Clarinda.” 

Clarinda arose quickly from the divan, and 
Peter took her gently in his arms. Her father 
winked at her knowingly and smiled. 

“What have you done, Peter?” she asked, 
as she struggled to release herself from him. 

“Wait until I get my breath,” he replied as 
he pushed her gently back upon the divan. He 
sat down between them. 

Carefully he arranged himself, stretching his 
long legs comfortably out in front of him; then 
he folded his arms complacently over his chest. 

“Tell us, Peter?” Clarinda asked again, as 
she drew herself close to him. “Isn’t it nice?” 
she added. “Just we three together. Father, 
you, and I?” 

Her father laughed and Peter put his arm 
around her. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 61 

“You’re a nice little person, Clarinda,” he 
said. 

“But think, Peter, why shouldn’t I be happy? 
What more could I want?” 

“That brings me to exactly what I wanted 
to tell you. What more could you want? I can 
think of lots of things. For example—a larger 
place. It might be the house on the Park Way. 
A car you could drive. A larger divan, with a 
bigger lamp behind it. Probably new clothes 
—a fur coat. Maybe a husband who would 
really accomplish something.” Peter stopped 
and contracted his brows. “Then further you 
might have a new father who would think more 
of you, one who might be more proud of you. 
I admit that is drawing a long bow; but he 
might be found.” 

“Peter, you are foolish,” she answered with 
wonderful pleasure in her voice. She loved to 
hear Peter talk, even if she thought what he 
said was foolish. “I want nothing. I was just 
telling father how pleased I was.” 

“You were also telling me how unhappy you 
were,” her father interjected. 

Clarinda sprang from the divan and stood 
directly in front of her father. “You know 
that isn’t true. I never said I was anything but 
happy. Father, I don’t see how you can imag¬ 
ine such things. Tell Peter it isn’t so.” 


62 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


“All right, all right!” her father answered. 
“Oh, woman! Oh, woman! Now listen, you 
two. Since I have made such a grievous mis¬ 
take, let’s speculate. Listen to the oracle: 
you, Peter, and you, Clarinda. I have a plan, 
which I think would do you both good. Ahem! ’ * 
he cleared his throat, “I find after due consid¬ 
eration of your situation, that your lives are 
too prosaic. Too much the same thing. Sup¬ 
pose you had a plot, some deep and sinister 
thing. I admit that the average persons don’t 
have plots in their lives, but that does not mat¬ 
ter, some few do, and why not you? You two 
should have some deep compelling motive, and 
there should be some other factor that would 
probably lead to some horrible situation, a mur¬ 
der, or a great theft, or a dual existence, some¬ 
thing that would lead to a tragedy, mixed with 
blood and gore.” 

“Horrible!” exclaimed Clarinda, and Peter 
shook his head in disagreement. 

‘‘ But think of the interest you would have! ’ ’ 
he added. 4 ‘ Peter could shoot you, or you could 
shoot Peter. You would have your picture in 
the papers, with splashing headlines. Instead 
of leading normal lives you would then undergo 
a great change, and when you died, people 
would remember you long enough to go to your 
funerals. ’ ’ 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


63 


i ‘The subject is changed. If you can’t be 
more cheerful you may go home,” broke in 
Clarinda, 

“I agree with Clarinda,” put in Peter. 

“Now, father, you are properly squelched. 
Let Peter tell us what he did today. That’s 
more interesting than plots, murders and 
thefts. I don’t care how prosaic my life is so 
long as I have you two to take care of me. 
What did you do, Peter?” 

“First of all, I bought the house on the Park 
Way,” he began. “I had the deed made out 
in the name of Mrs. Clarinda Thorbald. Sec¬ 
ond, I had put in the garage a nice little car. 
The license is made out in the name of Mrs. 
Clarinda Thorbald. Third, I had hung in one 
of the closets the coat Mrs. Clarinda Thorbald 
admired so much the other day. Fourth, I have 
had placed in the house—let’s see?” Peter 
told off on his fingers. “A housekeeper of 
the pickled kind, who has never smiled; this 
quality has been guaranteed by her last em¬ 
ployers. A butler of austere mien, a door man, 
a first-floor maid, a chef, a chauffeur, a hall boy, 
two cooks—these are in addition to the chef. 
Then there is a gardener, a furnace man—Lord! 
I think it is an army. And that’s not all—” 
Peter stopped for a moment. “Upstairs off 
the main hall I have had furnished a room pre- 


64 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


cisely like this one. In it is a very tall lamp, 
with a pink shade. A divan like this one that 
we are sitting on. But the greatest of all and 
the thing that was the most difficult to get—I 
found for her a father—just the kind I sug¬ 
gested. ’ ’ 

4 ‘ Peter!—Peter!’ ’ Clarinda exclaimed. 

“Oh, there is something else. Another thing 
that I found. You might imagine I had diffi¬ 
culty in finding a new father for you, but that 
was not a circumstance to this thing I accom¬ 
plished. I spent days in the search. I wan¬ 
dered from one end of the town to the other. I 
hunted with infinite care. At times I became 
completely discouraged and almost gave up in 
despair; but persistency is not a jewel, it is a 
diadem.’ ’ 

Clarinda’s father was amused and Clarinda 
was consumed with impatience. 

“As I have said,” he went on, “this last 
effort caused me great trouble, but I found it. 
And now, Clarinda, what do you think it was ?’ 7 

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Tell us? 
It must have been important if you went to all 
that trouble.” 

“Listen carefully, both of you. It is a mat¬ 
ter vital to your happiness, Clarinda. I—found 
—for Mrs. Clarinda Thorbald—a husband— 
who would think more of her and love her more 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


65 


and would fill her life with greater content— 
and—” 

Clarinda sprang from the divan. Her face 
was flushed, and she turned upon Peter. She 
put her hand over his mouth, and Peter strug¬ 
gled for an instant and then laughed loudly. 

“Peter—Peter!” she exclaimed. “You are 
perfectly horrid. I don’t believe anything is 
sacred to you. Every hit of pleasure I might 
have had is destroyed. I hate your old house.” 

Clarinda went out of the room and closed the 
door with a crash behind her. 

The two men looked at each other; after a 
few moments the old man said laconically: 

“You ought to know, Peter, that the spirit of 
jest is not a component part of the female make¬ 
up.” 

He arose from the divan, put on his coat and 
hat and went painfully out of the door. 

Peter left alone shrugged his shoulders and 
lit a cigarette, and with a sigh he fell hack into 
the corner of the divan and looked pensively 
into the fire. 


Y 


Several days went by before Clarinda recov¬ 
ered from tbe shock she had sustained during 
the conversation with her father and with 
Peter. 

Clarinda made it a point never to disagree 
with Peter. She wanted to submerge herself 
in his moods and thoughts, to absorb his 
point of view. It was true that she often found 
Peter bombastic and egotistical and even fool¬ 
ish, but that did not alter her determination. 
Her observation of combative women, and to 
what end they came, was sure, and it meant al¬ 
ways mental separation, so she determined to 
avoid this condition at whatever cost it might 
be to her own individuality. As he should go, 
so would she go. 

When she had thought the matter over, she 
saw that she had been small, and decided that 
when they went to inspect the house she would 
assent to anything he would suggest. 

Clarinda knew the house, and had often en¬ 
vied the people who had lived in it. It stood 
upon one of the most fashionable streets of the 
city. Surrounded by large gardens it stood 
66 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


67 


alone on the top of a hill, with a wall running 
around its borders that kept away the gaze of 
the public. 

It had been built but a few years, by a man 
who had made progress in his undertakings. 
He built it after plans he had long thought of, 
and in it he had placed his hopes. Within its 
four walls he wanted to pass a wonderful life 
and a long existence. 

The forces that control, however, took no in¬ 
terest in his plans, and he and his family moved 
in, and in only a short time he was smitten with 
an illness and all that he had hoped for was 
buried in a few feet of earth. 

This man who built the house was filled with 
ambition. He imagined as he walked through 
the halls and its decorated rooms, with his wife, 
that they would live long and he would have the 
opportunity of showing those whom he knew 
what the proper condition of life should be. 
These two sat in the marvelous rooms and wan¬ 
dered in its gardens and made their futile 
plans. 

Success had twisted their perspective; and 
the woman’s perspective was even more badly 
twisted than the man’s. 

Fate stood back of them in the shadows and 
laughed at them and their vain imaginings. 

The servants whom they hired to do their bid- 


68 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


ding, grinned at their stupidity. They worked 
with secret grudgings in their hearts and stole 
from them with perfect equanimity. The man 
knew these things, but felt it was part of the 
price he had to pay. 

In the world he was bowed down to and peo¬ 
ple he knew pointed their fingers at him and 
envied him his wealth and his big house. But 
fate came and crushed him. When he was gone 
fate went out of the doors to look for others 
to come into the house, and the place he had 
made for himself, and swept into its walls and 
gardens Clarinda and Peter. 

Peter and Clarinda went in the front doors 
of the house of sorrow. The servants bowed 
and grinned. The clocks struck the hours with 
indifference, but Peter gloated. The automo¬ 
bile he had bought stood on the paved way. As 
they entered he handed Clarinda a deed for the 
place, and Clarinda smiled and kissed him. All 
the anger she had felt went from her heart. 
The newness of the place, its size compared 
with the flat, gave her pride just as it had Peter. 

Peter took her through the rooms, and they 
passed from the hall into the parlors, then up 
the stairs into Clarinda’s apartments. In the 
middle of the room stood Clarinda’s little maid 
who gave assurance that all had not been swept 
away, that there was something to hold to. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


69 


Peter’s joy was great. He babbled on without 
hindrance, and with pleasure took her into a 
tiny room just off the one they were in. There 
he had placed a divan, with a tall lamp behind 
it. In front of which was a fireplace, and on 
the irons lay wood ready to be lit. 

Clarinda was pleased and she turned to 
Peter. 

“It is very nice. Only, Peter, I am afraid it 
is too large. I don’t think I am going to like 
it as much as I did the flat. ’ ’ 

‘ 4 Then you are not pleased that I bought it? 
Or is it because I joked with you?” 

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I hate jokes, 
and I hate people who try them on me. ’ ’ 

“I am sorry, but try to be happy if you can. 
Forgive me this time, for I only wanted it to 
be a surprise.” 

“I hate surprises,” she said slowly. 

“All right, never again,” he said finally. 

The little maid rushed about the place, for 
she liked the grandeur of the fittings, and the 
extent of the spaces. 

Clarinda examined the arrangements with 
care. She went into the rooms Peter had fixed 
for himself, and found that they were quite 
far from her own. She could not decide 
whether she liked this or not. Peter had always 


70 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


occupied the same room she had and it had 
worked very nicely. 

She feared that a hiatus had come, and it 
would grow into a tolerance. Something new 
was creeping into her life, hut she did not 
know whether it appealed to her or not in view 
of the dangers it concealed. 

It was true in her father’s house that her 
father and mother occupied separate rooms, 
and when she thought it over she remembered 
that it had worked well. They had managed to 
be very comfortable, physically and mentally. 
It might after all be much nicer. Probably 
with this arrangement she could collect about 
her things she liked and Peter could do likewise. 
Then it was conceded to be more civilized, and 
it would redound to her comfort in the morn¬ 
ings as she could have the maid help her to 
dress. 

Peter kept her moving from one part of the 
house to the other, then he led her into the 
kitchen. It was as big as the rest of the place. 
There were all kinds of contrivances just as 
her mother had them. As she entered she was 
greeted by a big person in a white apron and 
a cap on his square ill-looking Head, who an¬ 
nounced he was the chef. 

Clarinda smiled as he bowed low before her, 
but it chilled her, for she knew her one delight 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


71 


was gone. No more would slie be allowed to 
supervise what Peter ate. Never would she 
be allowed to dictate to the vegetable man, or 
the meat man, or the man who brought the eggs 
and the butter. Then a large person loomed 
out of the distance. A queer hard-faced per¬ 
son, who carried command in her manner, just 
such a person as Peter had described, who an¬ 
nounced that she was the housekeeper. 

Clarinda shrank back from all these, and a 
queer feeling went down her back. All these 
elaborate things that hung in festoons from the 
walls and hooks and this crowd of powerful 
servants scared her. She felt she had receded 
into the position of a marionette. 

Quickly she drew Peter from the kitchen and 
went back by a hidden staircase to the little 
room with the tall lamp and the divan; for here 
Clarinda felt more at home. 

Peter sat down in the corner of the divan 
and stretched his legs out in front of him. He 
was filled with a great complacency, as he 
pulled Clarinda down beside him. The tall 
lamp glowed behind them. The maid had lit 
the fire and the flames went up the chimney, 
just as they did in the flat. 

“Well,” he asked, “how do you like the new 
nest I have got for you?” 

Clarinda sat for a long time and made no 


72 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


answer. Her face was drawn into a knot. She 
was thinking seriously. However, she tucked 
herself into her place beside him and took his 
hand in hers and her eyes were half closed as 
she gazed steadily into the fire. 

4 ‘Father is coming presently,” she said at 
last, without answering his question. “I want 
him to look the place over, for he knows so 
much more than we do.” 

“You’ve great faith in the judgment of your 
father—and apparently little in your hus¬ 
band,” Peter replied with a peeved tone in his 
voice. 

‘ ‘ N o—not—exactly—that, ’ ’ she hesitated. 
“Ring the bell for the maid, Peter.” 

Peter rang the bell, and the maid came in and 
stood inquiringly at the door. 

‘ ‘ I want to do something, Peter, ’ ’ she said. 

“All right,” he answered. 

Clarinda turned to the maid. “Bring some 
coffee for Mr. Peter and me. Don’t make it, 
but bring hot water and just the coffee and 
some toast.” 

The maid curtsied and went out. 

“Why that?” he asked. 

“I don’t know. I am worried, Peter. I am 
all upset. I am trying to find out if I shall like 
this place. I feel as if something had given 
me a turn. ’ ’ 


CLAEINDA THORBALD 


73 


Clarinda arose from the divan, and pulled a 
small table from the center of the room. When 
the maid came in she told her to go down and 
get some cups and saucers, then to fix the table 
as she used to have it. 

The maid soon had the things as Clarinda 
wanted them, and Peter looked on in astonish¬ 
ment. 

“Now, Peter, you sit down there at the end, 
and I shall sit here. Let’s pretend it is morn¬ 
ing and you are having your breakfast and you 
are in a dreadful hurry.” 

Peter sat down as he was told and waited 
for her to finish her preparations. 

Clarinda was trying to drag herself back, 
but for some reason she could not. A new light 
had broken. Probably this was the rebirth her 
father had told her of. 

As they sat opposite each other and she was 
making the coffee, the door to the room opened 
and her father came in smiling, seemingly 
happy over the new nest Peter had provided 
for his daughter. 

Clarinda went over and kissed him. She 
helped him take off his coat and placed his cane 
in the corner, then she made a place for him 
at the table. 

After he had sat down a desultory conversa¬ 
tion began. They talked about the house and 


74 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


its arrangements, concerning the extent of the 
garden, the placing of the lake which Peter 
contemplated, the number of servants, and the 
effect the house made from the outside. Clar- 
inda listened while she busied herself making 
the coffee, and the maid brought in the toast. 

The men continued to speak of various stocks, 
the rise and fall in foreign exchange, the effect 
of the rise in the prices of steel, but Clarinda 
took no interest in these things. 

Without warning she broke in upon their con¬ 
versation. 

“I—I—don’t believe in this place. It seems 
to me to be too large. I feel as if my happiness 
had gone out of the window.” 

The men looked at her as if not hearing what 
she said. They waited for her to pass the cof¬ 
fee, and it was evident her father was pleased. 

“I wish I were back,” she broke in again. 

“Oh, Clarinda!” exclaimed Peter. “That’s 
the first mean remark I ever heard you make. ’ ’ 

“I mean it!” she replied slowly. 

“After all this struggle?” said her father. 

“I’ve been thinking,” answered Clarinda. 

“What! Women should not think, for it is 
bad for them,” her father put in smilingly. 

“I’ve been thinking of many things lately,” 
she replied. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


75 


“Name one of these things, Clarinda,” Peter 
said banteringly. 

‘‘ Everything is all wrong, ’ ’ said Clarinda, as 
she left the table. She walked about with a 
nervous step. “Do you remember, Father, 
when I was married, you said that I was not 
dying, but that it was a rebirth ?” 

“Yes, I remember, Clarinda,” answered her 
father. “What is the trouble? You know my 
method, I always believe that there is nothing 
so good as an out-and-out discussion, if anyone 
feels in a wrong situation. It clarifies things 
and leaves no room for misunderstanding,” he 
said looking into Clarinda’s eyes. “People 
who are married drift into situations just on 
this account, because they refuse to speak of 
them. Now, tell us what it is you are think¬ 
ing.” 

“You are talking at random, trying to con¬ 
jure up something that doesn’t exist. I know 
of no difficulty. Everything seems to me to 
be as calm as a summer’s day,” broke in Peter. 

“There is a rift,” answered her father. 
“Let’s find it.” 

“You are a pessimist. Where can there be 
a rift when two people are satisfied and under¬ 
stand each other perfectly?” 

“How do you know these people are satis¬ 
fied?” asked Clarinda. “Because one of them 


76 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


is wrapped in his own complacency, it does not 
follow that the other person is in the same 
frame of mind.” Clarinda had a queer look in 
her eyes. 

“There you are,” her father said quickly. 
He placed upon the table the cup he had in his 
hand. “Let Clarinda say what she means.” 

“I will,” she replied firmly. “You both 
shall be arraigned. I’ve decided to drag you 
both before yourselves and will appeal to you 
both—place you both in the light I think you 
ought to occupy.” 

‘‘ Listen—listen—another Portia ! 1 9 Peter 
carried deep mockery in his voice. 

“Be quiet, Peter,” commanded her father. 

Clarinda flushed and looked kindly at the old 
man. 

“I have thought—” she began. 

“The lady thinks,” laughed Peter. 

“Yes, as queer as it may seem—the lady 
thinks,” Clarinda put in. Peter noticed the 
look upon her face and it did not please him. 

“Hush, Peter,” said her father, laying his 
hand upon Peter ’s arm. 

“As queer as it may seem to you,” went on 
Clarinda. “The lady thinks, but she has 
thought for sometime past. The lady has come 
to know you two. She knows also that both 
of you think no woman should think. Never- 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


77 


theless, they do think but at all times their 
thoughts are not pleasant. ’ ’ 

“What have you thought?” her father asked 
as if to encourage her. 

“I’ve thought of my life and how extremely 
foolish it is. I’ve made a review of it, just 
while I was looking into the fire, and while I 
looked, it spread itself out before me, and made 
me ashamed. It is curious how rapidly one can 
think, and how a life that has covered years is 
gone over in a moment. I don’t like this big 
house. It comes to me just what my position 
will be. ’ ’ 

“The house is yours. You have the deed for 
it. I gave it to you,” said Peter. 

“That’s true. I’ve a piece of paper that re¬ 
cites that fact, but it is of no value to me. The 
thing I want has gone out of the window.” 

“I don’t follow you, Clarinda,” broke in her 
father. 

“You will understand, Father.” 

“Will I understand!” asked Peter. 

“I don’t know,” she replied. 

“Why won’t we understand?” asked Peter. 

“I don’t know.” 

“Go on, Clarinda,” said her father. 

“I’ve something to say. It will no doubt fill 
you both with astonishment. It has been on my 
mind for a long time. The other things have 


78 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


come to me only tonight. Listen, and get it 
carefully in your minds. Don’t think I am in¬ 
delicate or that I regret. I know it is the al¬ 
lotted thing for women. It is the natural con¬ 
dition. As you have both said so often, the 
one and only reason for women being in the 
world. I am going to be a mother.’ ’ 

“Clarinda!” exclaimed Peter. A curious 
wave went over him. 

“I am not pleased, ,, said her father, slowly 
as if turning the thing over in his mind. ‘ ‘ It is 
dangerous . 91 

“Irrespective of your ideas, it is true. I’ve 
said nothing about it before for many reasons,” 
she went on. “You must not think for a mo¬ 
ment that I am afraid. Nature doesn’t allow 
me to be afraid. Many times since this thing 
has come upon me I have analyzed my sensa¬ 
tions. I find my heart is filled with a curious 
kind of joy. I find my whole nature has under¬ 
gone a change and that my outlook has ex¬ 
panded. It seems to me as if I’ve gone through 
a revolution. But there is something else, 
something that is closer to my heart than even 
that. It is supposed to be the closest thing that 
can come to a woman . 9 9 

“For the Lord’s sake! What else?” asked 
Peter with astonishment. 

“There is much else. I have discovered that 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


79 


I am all wrong, 9 ’ Clarinda went on quietly and 
slowly and her voice carried a peculiar tone of 
sadness. “My life is all wrong. My perspec¬ 
tive is all wrong. I discover I’ve been sub¬ 
merged by you two. Still, I don’t believe it is 
exactly all your fault. A great deal of it arises 
from my own point of view. But, now, I’ve 
come to a point. I have revolted. This revolt 
may arise from my condition. This condition 
may create this revolt. It seems to me as if it 
were a physical awakening. I don’t know 
where to place the blame. It may be your 
fault, Peter. But it is more the fault of my 
mother and father. They laid down the lines, 
and Peter simply follows out these limits as 
they had placed them.” 

Her father did not reply. To him it was won¬ 
derful to hear her speak. It interested him vi¬ 
tally, for as far as he was concerned it placed 
Clarinda in a new light. He had never thought 
it was in her to have an idea except such as was 
conveyed to her by either Peter or himself. It 
was a new concept. He could not judge if she 
were making a mistake or not. He waited for 
her to say more. 

“All my life,” she began again, “I’ve been 
trained by people who tried to avoid for me any 
phase of life that might be difficult. As I see 
it, my existence has been made a bed of roses. 


80 CLARINDA THORBALD 

Temptation has been kept from me. Existence 
as it is has been pushed aside. Luxury has 
been spread at my feet. Everything has been 
done to lead me to believe that in the world 
there was nothing but ease and comfort. I was 
allowed to look only upon the bright side. The 
lights were always lit, and yet I lived in a haze. 
Somehow I felt during all the years I lived that 
it was wrong. But I did not try to reason the 
thing out. I could not. What is the result? I 
am the result.” Clarinda stopped and then 
with a new tone in her voice went on: 

“The result is that you’ve created a woman 
without force, a puny thing that can be argued 
into any position. Think of it! By two men 
who are as narrow in their point of view of 
women as the creases in their shirt fronts, by 
two men who have looked upon me as a toy, or 
a piece of Dresden china. Something that 
should give them pleasure, a puppet, walking 
about on two legs. Now, listen, I don’t blame 
either of you as I should. I blame much more 
the environment in which I was born. Here is 
the remarkable thing about it. Since this new 
condition has come upon me, as I told you—I 
have undergone a change. It is psychological 
as well as physical. It startles me and I feel 
as if something had been torn from me. I have 
revolted. Out of this revolution is created a 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


81 


new personality and the birth of this personal¬ 
ity is causing me as much pain as I shall suffer 
with the birth of my child.’ ’ 

“But, Clarinda, ,, interposed her father, 
“your premises are wrong. Your argument is 
poor. Why should you not have been protected 
and advised by older minds ? Why should you 
not have the easiest way? I could afford it. I 
certainly thought it for the best. My love for 
you did this thing. Peter has lived with but one 
thought in his mind, which is you. *’ 

“I, too, object to your statements, just as 
your father does, for I feel it a pleasure to give 
you all that you want. There is nothing else in 
life for me but that. I can’t see why you would 
deny me this one thing,” Peter broke in as her 
father finished speaking. 

“You are both wrong,” Clarinda said quick¬ 
ly. “Look at the result of your misapplied 
consideration. What is the result? As I said, 
a puppet, a thing without color, or a mere toy. 
It is terrible to think of. It is so unjust, so 
unfair. If anybody knew me as I am they 
would laugh or weep. I don’t know which. But 
thank heavens that is done before it is too late 
and I am about to enter upon a second stage, 
a new development. I have shed this thing as 
a cloak, I have awakened to a change that has 
come—a vital change, so big that you in your 


82 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


little minds, I doubt if you can appreciate what 
it is. In the place of the toy and the puppet 
here stands a woman. I hope a force, an intel¬ 
lectual entity. ’ ’ 

“And—,” began Peter. But before he could 
formulate a sentence, Clarinda had raised her 
hand. 

i ‘ Stop! As I told you, I am about to become 
a mother. It is curious how this condition has 
affected me. I should like to tell you, to de¬ 
scribe the mental adjustment that has taken 
place, but I doubt whether I can . 91 

“Go on!” commanded her father. “What 
has happened? What has taken place? What 
do you feel?” 

“I don’t know if I can,” Clarinda replied. 
“It is too great a revolution. You might not 
believe what I have thought. You might think 
my words were just words. You might think I 
was versed in psychosis. I will try, however. 
You ask me what has happened? A wonderful 
thing has happened. As I look at it. This is 
what has happened. Hitherto, I have lived as 
if behind an impenetrable veil. Of a sudden 
this thing has been torn apart and a dazzling 
light, almost more than I can face, has broken 
in upon me, and is leaving me dazed. The new 
situation is almost impossible for me to face, 
and this is what has happened. Then you ask 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


83 


me what has taken place ? This—I am another 
person. In me has been raised a peculiar ani¬ 
mal instinct. I have reverted to the field. There 
is no feeling of fear. It is more—one of pres¬ 
ervation, not so much of myself, but rather 
of the life that is quickening in me. This is 
what has taken place. I want to fight, I don’t 
know what I want to fight. Then—you ask me, 
what do I feel? I feel joy. I have lost my 
lethargy. I am excited. Every movement in 
me is one of distinct anticipation. And I don’t 
know what I anticipate.’ 9 

‘ 4 Good Lord!” exclaimed Peter. 

“I am done,” she said finally. “There is 
only one request I have to make, and there is 
only one thing that I want. I am willing to go 
through this period. That is, I want to go back 
to the flat. For once I should be allowed to do 
as I please. Honestly, Peter,” and her voice 
was full of pleading. “I don’t like this place. 
It is too big. It is too much. I can ever oc¬ 
cupy in it but a secondary position. I dislike 
the housekeeper, the chef, the maids, and the 
spaces. I’ve only a short time to pass through, 
and for that short time I want things as I wish 
to have them.” 

“Yes, I would go back, Peter,” put in her 
father. 

“No, for it is only a whim, probably aroused 


84 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


by her condition. I understand women often 
take these turns when they are as she is. It is 
foolish,” Peter answered with anger. 

4 ‘We are going back,” replied Clarinda, with 
a fixity of purpose. “Why not? I may die. I 
may be ill for a long time. Why should I not 
have what I want? But remember I am not 
afraid of this thing.” 

“When do you want to go back?” asked 
Peter. 

“Now,” she answered shortly. 

“It can’t be done.” 

“I think Clarinda is reasonable,” her father 
said. 

‘ ‘ But what of all these people ?’ 9 asked Peter. 

‘ ‘ They are certainly no more important than 
I am. Are they?” Clarinda asked. 

Peter arose from the divan and shrugging 
his shoulders stepped over to the wall and 
touched a button. Presently the woman with 
the big jaw and the impenetrable face came in. 
Peter turned to her as she entered. 

“Mrs. Caws, Mrs. Thorbald doesn’t like this 
place,” said Peter stupefied with anger. Clar¬ 
inda stopped him. 

“I shall tell Mrs. Caws, Peter,” she said 
quickly. “Please, Mrs. Caws, will you be kind 
enough to dismiss the servants. Mr. Thorbald 
and I have decided to go away for sometime. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


85 


You will see to the closing of the house. That 
is all, Mrs. Caws.” 

Mrs. Caws went out. 

44 It is done, Peter.” 

“Do you think that settles it, Clarinda?” 
“Yes, that settles it, Peter,” and Clarinda 
smiled wearily as she rose and left the room. 






















STAGE TWO 













I 


A great deal of water had run under the 
bridge since Clarinda had left the big house 
and gone back to the flat. A great deal more 
water had run under the bridge before Clarinda 
had consented to come back to the big house 
and had settled permanently in its rooms and 
halls. 

Her child had been born, it had thrived and 
grown, her father had aged. Rarely he came 
to the house unless he was assisted by his man, 
and then only when the sun was bright and the 
sky unclouded. Peter had grown more success¬ 
ful and had acquired the Midian touch. Gold 
came to him as penury comes to most. His ar¬ 
rogance and bombast had grown greater. Her 
mother remained in the background. Removed 
from all contact with Clarinda and her life, she 
came to the house very seldom and then only 
to complain. She appeared to think her duty 
toward Clarinda finished and reasoned as she 
had given Clarinda birth, raised her to woman¬ 
hood and married her off, she had done for her 
all that a mother could do. 

Having finished her duty, she gave herself up 
89 


90 


CLAEINDA THOEBALD 


to a life of pleasure, and she caromed from one 
gaiety to another like the halls upon a billiard 
table, propelled by a professional. 

The going from the flat to the house had 
been considered by Clarinda for many, many 
months before she reached a decision. She 
thought it out carefully. She argued the thing 
from all sides, and came to the conclusion that 
probably she might be in error, as many women 
err who are in love. Without consideration of 
her own happiness she gave in before the argu¬ 
ments of her father and of Peter. 

Peter won the first great point in their lives. 
On the day they came back Mrs. Caws again 
stood in front of them with a curious smile upon 
her hard old features; he gloated upon his vic¬ 
tory, and gave orders with unction. It pleased 
him immensely, and it swelled him with his 
own importance. He felt it was by his own 
strength of will that he compelled Clarinda to 
accept the exact position he deemed proper a 
woman should occupy in relation to her hus¬ 
band. His joy on the whole was complete, for 
woman to him was a woman properly placed. 

Clarinda looked at him narrowly. Her mind 
was in a state of chaos. She felt in her soul 
that she had lost something she could never re¬ 
cover. Yes, she knew his outlook, and although 
she knew it she hated it fiercely. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


91 


If it had not been that by persistent effort 
through a term of years, Clarinda had tanght 
herself to control her tears, she would have 
wept. But she had learned in these years how 
to control her tears. Tears had no effect upon 
Peter, for when she wept, Peter only scorned 
her. So she found that she aroused no pity in 
his heart. 

Steadily Clarinda had fought the move from 
the old to the new, but Peter had fought even 
as consistently. His strength resulted in her 
defeat and so it came about. After they had 
entered the house Peter helped her off with her 
wraps. At a signal to Mrs. Caws, who had been 
standing close by, she left the hall. As she 
closed the door behind her, Clarinda turned to 
Peter and said slowly as if repeating a line she 
had heard, 

“My happiness has gone out of the window.’’ 

Peter tossed his head. A wicked smile 
crossed his lips. He spoke with bitter sarcasm. 

“I can’t understand your attitude, Clarinda. 
It seems to me if anyone had given me such a 
place as this, I would rather have said my hap¬ 
piness had come in by the window.” 

Clarinda paid no attention to his reply. She 
continued to speak in the same painful voice: 

“You’ve won, Peter,” and her lips trembled 
as she stopped for an instant. “It is the little 


92 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


things in life that count. It is the tiny pebble 
that changes the course of the stream. Yes, 
Peter, you’ve won—and at what a price.” 

“It represents thousands and thousands, 
Clarinda,” he replied, without getting her 
point of view. 

“Money—money—money! That is your 
fetish. You are carried away with gold! It 
will bury eventually all that is good in you. ’ ’ 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “Money 
may be rotten and all that; but from my ob¬ 
servation it is a most comfortable sort of 
possession.” 

“Where is your soul?” 

“Rot!” he exclaimed. “Why be trite? 
Souls in this world? A curious superstition 
handed down from no one knows where. A 
relic of fear. A thing to dangle before the eyes 
of the sick to help them die with a smile. A 
sop to the sick. A thing to dangle before the 
ignorant. Of what avail are they? Sometimes, 
I wonder whether you will ever graduate into 
the sort of woman I want. Must you always 
have a child’s point of view?” 

“What sort of woman do you want, Peter?” 
she asked looking at him closely. “Since 
you’ve won this point, if you will tell me I will 
be that sort.” 

Peter walked away from her a few steps 


CLARINDA THOKBALD 


93 


then after a short while he turned and replied. 

“I’ve thought a lot about the sort of woman 
I want. It is difficult to come to an exact con¬ 
clusion. When I am idle I picture to myself 
the sort I think I should have. It is a very hard 
proposition.” 

“Express it, Peter! You’ve never had diffi¬ 
culty on that score.” 

‘ 4 Sometime I will. I can’t do it now for it 
would take too long. I am very busy. I’ll tell 
you some other time. ’ ’ 

“I want you to do it now. Explain!” Clar- 
inda broke forth. “I don’t believe you ever 
can explain! I see!—I know!—I may be stupid 
and only a child—but I know! Another illu¬ 
sion has been torn from me, and the bare bone 
is left.” 

Clarinda turned to go out of the door that 
led to the upper reaches of the house. Peter 
went after her quickly. He took her hand in 
his and led her unwillingly toward the sofa that 
stood to one side. 

“Sit down here,” he commanded, “for just 
a moment. I am going to try to tell you what 
I mean.” Clarinda sat down and bent her 
head forward looking intently at the floor in 
front of her. A deep serious gaze was in her 
eyes. “I am going to tell you what I mean,” 
he continued repeating himself. “It is true, 


94 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Clarinda, that I’ve not much time, hut we might 
as well thrash the thing out. I am going to put 
before you the position I occupy. You’ve al¬ 
ways been square and able to see how just I 
am. Now listen.” 

In the more than three years they had been 
married, Clarinda had lost none of her sweet¬ 
ness of look. Peter was forced to concede that 
much. Since the baby had come, it appeared to 
him that an added lustre had been given to her. 
She had developed wonderfully. Her figure 
and the lines of her young face had been meta¬ 
morphosed. The baby represented to him an¬ 
other incident in life—a component part of the 
progress. 

He sat down beside her and looked at her 
bent body. But he would not let himself be 
swayed, for he felt this would not be just to 
himself. The time had come when Clarinda 
must be brought to face the exalted position he 
had constructed for her and for himself. 

They sat close together and Peter chose his 
words with infinite care. With as much cer¬ 
tainty and deliberation as if he were placing a 
matter of great moment before one of the nu¬ 
merous boards of directors to which he be¬ 
longed. 

“This,” he began slowly, “is my position 
and I think you ought to realize it perfectly. I 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


95 


am, what is normally termed, a successful man, 
having arrived at this position by my own ef¬ 
forts. It is vital to me that you fill this position 
with me. You know, if you have ever consid¬ 
ered the matter, that a wife assumes more or 
less the position of either an employee or a 
partner in a marriage contract. A thing like 
this is not all of one side. Butterflies are all 
well enough in a garden, but only in a garden. 
In the grand scheme they amount to nothing. 
If either of the contracting parties does not 
arise to his or her part, the one not arising as¬ 
sumes a minor position in the operation. In 
other words, she or he loses his standing as a 
partner. He or she stands apart in the fight. 
You will concede that life is a fight, a survival 
of the fittest. This you must acknowledge is 
correct. It stands without discussion. It is a 
syllogism.” 

Clarinda listened to his words and her mind 
followed each sentence as he spoke. In her 
arose a wrath complete. He destroyed every 
foundation upon which she had hoped to build 
her existence. However, she said nothing. 

Peter continued: “I admit I love you. It 
would distress me beyond words if I thought 
for an instant that love didn’t exist in me and 
if the same thing didn’t animate your spirit. 
You must understand that my love isn’t an ef- 


96 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


fervescing thing, but a solid unfrothed condi¬ 
tion. Stable and certain. Pushed aside, it is 
true, by necessities, but existent. Now, with 
that love, as I say a certainty, it is required of 
you to fulfill your part of the contract to ex¬ 
pand, to develop, to spread, even as I have 
spread . 9 7 

“Do you think you love?” asked Clarinda. 
“Have you ever thought in your dissection of 
this matter of how I have suffered for you? I 
suffered terribly when the baby came. I suf¬ 
fered for months with a painful illness. But 
that is of no importance. The baby is only part 
of me, a thing—how should I say?” 

“Don’t try,” he said quickly. “Suffering is 
part of your life, just as this disappointment 
in you is an adjunct of mine, a necessary part 
of our existence to be treated philosophically. 
It amounts to nothing. When the pain is as¬ 
suaged you cannot remember its effects. You 
speak of love, our love. What of our love? My 
opinion of this matter of love, is this. Love is 
a proper condition and should be in every 
house, but in the main it amounts to nothing. 
It has no intrinsic value. Nature does not 
recognize love. It only sees propinquity which 
it reduces to the necessity of reproduction. Do 
you suppose love exists in the lower forms of 
life? It does not. I love, but I don’t allow love 


CLAEINDA THOEBALD 


97 


to obscure my larger view. I submerge it and 
put it to its proper uses. What does love 
mean? Nothing but a moment’s forgetfulness 
—passion—children—probably better if never 
born. It is useful in its place, but in the grand 
scheme it has no place. Of course you suffer 
—why not? But you should realize that never 
can a woman arrive at the proper point of view. 
They are too animal-like and too physically dis¬ 
arranged. They are by far too bound down by 
their natural destiny. It is unnecessary for me 
to mention what that destiny is. ’ ’ 

‘ 4 Do you believe what you are saying ? Don’t 
you think you’re just talking, Peter?” Clarinda 
broke in as he paused for an instant. 

"I believe I am not just talking for talk’s 
sake. I’ve no time to waste in idle words. 
There is one more thing. No doubt you prob¬ 
ably think what I have said is cruel. I admit 
it sounds cruel. It is cruel, because all life is 
cruel. The coming of your child was cruel. 
The coming of age upon you is cruel, nature is 
the epitome of cruelty, it crushes without stint 
or consideration. It builds only to destroy.” 

"What a curious philosophy,” Clarinda’s 
voice quavered. "Then I have failed. How 
queer. And the baby— ’ ’ 

"The baby,” he went on with even as great 
care as he had used, "the baby is a thing apart, 


98 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


an accident in life, which was desired by neither 
of us. Why should we have babies? I’ve asked 
myself this many times and arrived at no solu¬ 
tion. Why produce these things? An uncon¬ 
trolled animal instinct forces us to bring them 
into the world, and for what? When I see 
babies I generally weep. I see before me the 
future, the futility of youth, the sadness of the 
middle period, the arrival at puberty, then the 
going forth to seek a mate, the development of 
the sex instinct, and then the shriveling and 
shrinking into the grave. I would not say, 
Clarinda, that you had failed, I would not go 
that far. It is hard to explain. I shall try to 
think it out further. ’’ 

Clarinda arose from the sofa, and went to 
one of the long windows that gave a view out 
upon the garden. She gazed unseeingly over 
its expanse, and spoke in a tone so low that he 
from his distance could barely hear her. 

“ I do not believe as you believe, Peter, I am 
glad to say. I can’t tear things apart as you 
do, and I am glad I cannot. It is terrible to 
think as you think. It makes everything so 
black, so discouraging. Even with this view 
of yours there are things even more vital; if 
possible, more vital than money and success. 
You’ve said frightful things to me; you think 
you are analytical, logical, but you are not; you 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


99 


only destroy. It is horrible to me to think that 
it is only a little over three years since we were 
married and already the good in you has died, 
and for what? Money, and a false philosophy 
built upon—nothing! Oh! how I hate money, 
success, riches and places like this. How I wish 
we were poor!” 

“Then, probably, Clarinda, instead of lash¬ 
ing you with indisputable logic, I would be 
beating you with a whip. Everything is com¬ 
parative. You speak in broken tones, as if a 
tragedy had come upon you. Life is a tragedy. 
But it is foolish to think of it so. Why not 
face facts?” 

“Facts! Facts! Nothing but facts!” Clar¬ 
inda almost screamed. “It is a tragedy. You 
remember, Peter, at one time Father said our 
lives were too prosaic. How mistaken he was. 
He could not see tragedy even if it stalked di¬ 
rectly in front of him. Poor soul. He said, if 
you remember, that it would be a good thing 
for us if we had a murder, a great theft, or that 
you or I should lead a double life . That this 
sort of thing would lend interest. Poor Father. 
He didn’t know that tragedy was upon me. 
That murder was in your heart and that you 
were preparing to commit murder, only in a 
worse way than the actual stabbing or shoot¬ 
ing me to death. It would have been better if 


100 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


you had done it that way, than to have done 
it, as you say, with indisputable logic. It might 
have been better for me had I been the wife of 
a drunkard. He might have beaten me with 
whips. But at least he would have left hope in 
my heart. Now I have nothing. Yes, yes, 
Peter, you have won. You should be proud of 
your victory.” 

Peter arose from the divan and walked 
quickly and impatiently up and down the hall. 
He did not think Clarinda would take the 
change he was forced to bring about so much to 
heart. He had convinced himself she would see 
it as he did. 

“You are dramatic, Clarinda, and unneces¬ 
sarily so. I don’t believe you think.” 

“I’ve been taught that to think was wrong. 
I know now women should not think. It might 
be better if they did. For without thought they 
only invite disaster. We will see, Peter, but 
don’t be disappointed if this philosophy doesn’t 
come to your end. You’ve said I have failed 
you. I promise not to fail in the future.” 

Clarinda turned from the window and went 
quickly out of the room, and she closed the door 
gently behind her. Peter made a motion as if 
to stop her, but he did not. He felt it were 
better that she should work the new situation 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


101 


out in her mind. He was convinced she would 
see the justice of his position. 

Presently he went out of the house and en¬ 
tered the automobile that waited for him at the 
door. As he settled himself back in the cush¬ 
ions of the car, he reverted to the first refusal 
Clarinda had made when she left the big house 
upon her first induction into it. He had never 
forgiven her for this. He had tried to make 
excuses for her, but could find none even when 
he ascribed it to her condition at the time; but 
her consistent attitude in her refusal divorced 
this excuse from his mind. It had hurt him 
immeasurably when he considered the time and 
the effort he had expended to accumulate the 
place. Her stubborness and wilful conduct 
destroyed his ambition. 

He knew he would never get over the blow 
from the instant she had given it to him. His 
mental attitude towards her underwent a 
change, a change so vital that he would never 
be able to overcome it. Clarinda fell from the 
pinnacle upon which he had placed her and had 
descended into the mere wife. She had become 
a necessary evil in his life, but not a component 
part thereof. 

As he allowed her to go out of the door, he 
reflected he had caused a change and he would 
abide by it. If it evolved a bad situation, he 


102 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


would accommodate himself to the new condi¬ 
tion. He was too busy to give it more thought, 
it might take his mind off his real effort. Peter 
tossed his head in the air and as the car went 
swiftly along his tongue evolved the few words: 

“What a hell of a bore!” 

Clarinda watched him go from the window in 
her apartment. She heard the automobile that 
waited outside. She heard the engine start 
and she heard Peter give his order to the 
driver. A great black pall came over her. She 
went from the window and sank hopelessly 
upon the divan. Clarinda buried her lovely 
head in a cushion and thought. 

With clearness she saw her position. She 
knew from now on that instead of being an in¬ 
tegral part of Peter’s life she was but his legal¬ 
ized mistress, clothed with respectability. All 
her hopes died, and all her anticipations for 
herself and her baby died and were swept by 
the angry winds of adversity into space. Clar¬ 
inda wept. 

After a long time by superhuman effort she 
collected herself, and forced a new spirit into 
her life. She was no more the Clarinda who 
had existed. Her love for Peter died. She 
stood untrammelled—free. 

She rang the bell that was near at hand. 


CLAEINDA THOEBALD 


103 


“I will go out,” she said to the maid as she 
entered the room. “Order my car.” 

The maid whispered almost to herself. 
“Something has happened.” 

Clarinda put on her wraps, and it was only 
a few moments when the car was at the door. 
She entered it and gave an order to the driver. 
Then, “Horrors!” she muttered. 


II 


The car sped over the road. Occasionally 
the driver turned for directions. Clarinda’s 
only reply was to drive faster. It seemed to 
her the only thing she desired was motion, such 
motion as might keep pace with her thoughts. 

A feeling of despair overcame her, for her 
body suffered with her mind. Futility was 
even more dominant than ever. She had be¬ 
come imbubed with the spirit of Peter, that 
nothing in the world was of any avail, that to 
fight against a surrounding condition was of 
no use, that all things were controlled by an in¬ 
visible force, a force that laughed at any effort 
to set it aside from its driven path. There was 
nothing left. It was all reduced to her as a 
difficulty without a sign of relief. 

All that she believed in was destroyed. Even 
the struggle she had made to make for herself 
and Peter a life as near an approach to the 
ideal as possible had fallen to pieces. There 
was left of her endeavor—nothing. 

In the midst of her madness the face of her 
child came before her. She hated it even as she 
hated all things. Her hate for Peter was 

104 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


105 


paramount and a greater hate existed in her 
heart for her father. Her bitterness seemed 
to concentrate against her father, for it was 
he who had tutored her into the thing she was. 
The education he gave her had blighted her 
life, by leaving her unprepared to meet its vi¬ 
cissitudes, its necessities, and demands. 

She sought in her mind for an excuse for 
them, but could find none. At last as if some 
great force had taken Peter and her father and 
stripped them of their flesh, laying bare their 
innermost souls, she looked into their breasts 
and saw of what they were made. 

Heretofore her face had never betrayed a 
sign of hardness. It became hard, and her eyes 
changed color, her cheeks took upon them a 
different bloom. Her whole body changed un¬ 
der the blow she had received. A determina¬ 
tion came into her and broke down all the bar¬ 
riers to her better self. All these barriers she 
had erected through years of endeavor were 
gone, and cast into the dust heap. 

As a snake sheds its skin, so Clarinda shed 
all that had been the old Clarinda. 

The impasse brought a new factor, one actu¬ 
ated by a woman of new motives. It brought 
a woman’s mind dark and seething and bitter, 
and Clarinda felt the change and shivered with 


106 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


fear at the prospect. She could not decipher 
to what end it would lead her. 

Clarinda balanced her account with life and 
found it all written in red. Never had she re¬ 
ceived from it anything but the most terrible 
futility. Evil was not of her, but she deter¬ 
mined it should come. All the good she scat¬ 
tered at her feet, breaking it as a frail piece 
of glass. From now on she would follow in the 
steps of those whom she had looked up to. 
Henceforth, she would gather the bitter, no 
matter what the poison might be. 

Where she would land or to what end it 
should bring her, she cared not. With inde¬ 
fatigable sincerity she had tried to do what she 
thought was right. This had landed her in a 
morass of disappointment, and made her only 
the mistress of the man to whom she had been 
married. It was not her fault. It was the 
fault of Peter and her father and she was de¬ 
termined that they should pay. The price they 
should pay would be the price of death. For 
the years she had been married she had patted 
Peter upon the back and helped him with un¬ 
swerving faith. Now, she should destroy with 
the same determination what she had endeav¬ 
ored to build. He should pay and pay in the 
coin he knew nothing of. Her father likewise 
should pay, for it was he who had spurred 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


107 


Peter on. Endlessly lie told him in long con¬ 
versations, during many nights, of his ability, 
until Peter believed he was impregnable. He 
caused Peter to lose all sense of proportion. 

Clarinda was not angry at her own position; 
it was deeper than that. She would seek her 
own emancipation, for her life was destroyed. 
Why not bring down the temple with her in her 
fall, grind it, grind it out into powder that 
would leave no trace of its original intent? 

“ Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I will 
repay .’’ Clarinda knew this line, but it had 
no significance. 

She put her hand upon the arm of the driver 
and told him to turn back and she directed him 
to the house of her father. In a short time she 
arrived. After the car stopped at the marble 
steps that led to his glory, she sprang from 
its interior and ran into the hall, the same hall 
she had come from with hope in her heart and 
visions of perfect joy in her soul. Then all 
the world had looked to her as if it desired to 
cover her with a mantle of good. Now it was 
gone, obliterated, wiped out and nothing re¬ 
mained. It was futile. In the place of prom¬ 
ises it had given nothing and the struggle she 
had made was a vain endeavor. 

Rapidly she walked across the hall and went 


108 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


up the stairs. She pushed open the door and 
entered the room in which her father sat. 

In three years a change had come upon him. 
His limbs almost refused to carry his body. His 
hands shook pitifully. His eyes lacked in lus¬ 
tre, they had died, before he had died. Around 
his shoulders, limp and lost in form, hung a 
blanket of rich design to protect him from any 
draft that might steal insidiously across the 
floors. His head shook, even as his hands. All 
about him was disintegration. A sickness that 
portended death enveloped him. 

He had been sitting there for months, and 
ever before his old, dim eyes came images of 
those who had gone before. He saw them when 
he was left alone and in the night they were 
even more present. They seemed to beckon 
to him across the dark passage he was con¬ 
fronting and he thought they smiled and their 
smiles seemed to him to be smiles of derision. 
Always they pointed at him with bony fingers 
and their fleshless jaws clashed with a painful 
noise. He feared and trembled with dread. 
There was no hope and he knew it, death was 
at hand. It was only tomorrow. 

Often he saw the opened grave that would 
receive his worn-out body, and all would be 
ended. There was no hope of immortality. He 
believed in nothing. He saw but death, dirt 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


109 


and disintegration. When he had ceased to 
breathe, he would become carrion to be de¬ 
voured by countless maggots. 

The old man wept with regret and begged in 
his innermost self that he might be given a few 
more moments. Sometimes, the tears ran down 
his old, withered face. They fell mockingly 
upon his clothes and stained them as if with 
blood. He would slink back into the folds of 
his chair as if from its depths he could find 
protection from the thing he dreaded. 

Clarinda as she entered the room saw him 
drawn back into his chair. She watched his 
hands shake and tremble as if with the palsy 
and pity went out of her heart, she wanted him 
to die. Clarinda linked her revenge with him. 
She wanted the death of this worn-out old man 
in front of her. He was dying, she knew it, and 
she rejoiced that it was so. The condition in 
which she found herself was his burden. Pity 
had died and nothing was left, there was no 
surcease. The thing was before her that had 
produced her and of this thing she would have 
revenge. She suffered and her suffering was 
greater than his. His was ended while hers 
stretched out for years. There was no such 
end for hers, as his. There was a stone in her 
breast where her heart should have been. She 
would carry this stone for endless years. 


110 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Clarinda threw off her coat. She did not go 
to her father, nor place the cover about him 
with her hands. 

Her father looked at her and pride filled his 
heart. He envied her her youth and would have 
sacrificed her for a few more years of life. He 
was human and acknowledged it. Clarinda 
hated him as she hated Peter and she could not 
say which one she hated the more. Even her 
child she hated. 

Her father stretched out his hand to her and 
placed his face to hers that she might kiss him. 
Clarinda did not move but stood directly in 
front of him. Her eyes were narrowed. A 
bitter smile flitted across her face. Clarinda 
saw him shake. She looked, as his hand fell 
inert at his side. 

“It is over,” she said slowly. 

“What is over?” her father asked mumbling 
his words. 

Clarinda sat down in a chair and pulled it 
over in front of him. Her manner did not 
change. She kept her eyes fixed upon his face. 

“It is over,” she repeated. “Life is queer. 
Don’t you think so, Father?” 

“Yes, yes!” he answered. “What do you 
mean?” 

“You are dying and it is fortunate it is so,” 
she replied with conviction in her voice. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


111 


The old man shrank back further in his 
chair. He turned his eyes towards her and 
looked eagerly into her face. He trembled in 
an agony of fear—he could not understand. 
He asked himself if in one day there had come 
such a change. Were the hands of the dead 
stretched out any more insistently today than 
yesterday? 

“Do I look worse?” he asked pitifully. 

“Yes, you are worse. Your hands are worse. 
Your face is more drawn. I can see a great 
change/’ she replied, following with her eyes 
the effect of her words. It pleased her that he 
felt so deeply. Then she added: 

“I believe you are dying. I believe that to¬ 
day when the sun goes down you will be dead. 
YouVe not fought, as you should have fought. 
You are as weak as I thought you would be.” 

“Clarinda! Clarinda!” he screamed. 

“Why do you fear? What’s the use? The 
thing is upon you. It is here. You must die. 
And now!” Clarinda smiled, her satisfaction 
was intense. Had he not murdered her? Had 
he not destroyed her? Was not her destruction 
greater than the destruction she passed on to 
him? 

The old man gasped and his heart beat with 
fury in his breast. He could barely see her as 
she sat before him. He could not understand 


112 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


this curious change that had come to her, his 
Clarinda, the thing he had loved and worshiped. 

“Why this, Clarinda, when you know my con¬ 
dition ?” he stuttered. 

“I will tell you,” she said intensely. 

1 i Through all my life you aimed to destroy me, 
even from my youth.” 

As she was about to continue the door opened 
and Peter rushed into the room. Clarinda 
sprang quickly from her chair, as she heard 
him enter. He cast a look toward the huddled 
heap in the chair, and in a moment he saw that 
it was dead. 

“What has happened? I suspected that you 
were up to something,” he said. 

“You are the matter,” Clarinda replied 
turning from him and walking to the other side 
of the room. 

“What have I done?” he asked, his face 
turning pale. 

“You ask!” Clarinda exclaimed. 

‘ 4 1 ask, ’ 9 he said with wonder in his voice. 

“What you have done is finished. There is 
the result.” 

The figure in the chair slipped down a little 
further. The helpless hands dropped limp be¬ 
side the chair, and a curious look of repose 
spread itself over the gray ashen face. A bit 
of saliva trickled from the open mouth. 


CLAEINDA THOEBALD 


113 


Peter cried aloud and the house went into a 
turmoil. He tried to pull the old dead man 
back into the chair. It was useless, for gradu¬ 
ally the body slipped to the floor and lay bent 
in curious contortions. Clarinda went out of 
the door, down through the hall and entered the 
car, and ordered the driver to take her home. 

A fury that was intense drove her, but there 
was no pity in her heart. She wanted revenge 
and she would persist in bringing it about. 

Peter followed her shortly and found her 
sitting upon the divan. There was no disturb¬ 
ance in her attitude. Clarinda sat quietly. On 
the floor in front of her was her child. It 
played unmindful of the tragedy about it. It 
cooed and looked occasionally at its mother. 
Clarinda bent her eyes towards it and wished 
in her heart it was as dead as her father. 
Should it be raised to sorrow such as she had? 
Would it put its trust in some great thing and 
have that trust destroyed? She could kill it 
with her own hands. It would take but a mo¬ 
ment. Its life was held by a slender thread and 
her hands were strong. 

Peter saw the look on her face as he entered. 
Quickly he took the child from the floor as if 
to protect it from her. Clarinda did not move. 

4 ‘Your father is dead,” Peter said. 

4 ‘I know it,” she replied shortly. 


114 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


44 You’ve killed him.” 

“I know it,” she answered in a deadened 
voice. 

“Why?” Peter asked. 

“He is dead,” she answered. “It is better 
so. I am not sorry. You should have seen his 
fear. It was pathetic.” 

“Why did you do it?” Peter asked, with awe 
in his voice. 

“I am someone else. Probably such a wife 
as you want. I am different. My other self 
has died even as my father has died.” 

4 4 God forbid! I didn’t know! ’ ’ Peter gasped. 

44 Go!” she demanded. 

4 4 You would have killed the child. I had a 
premonition. That is why I followed you. You 
would have killed the child?” 

44 Yes, I would have killed it. Why not? It 
is only the emblem of my degradation. It 
would not have mattered. Death may have 
saved it much. ’ ’ 

“Clarinda!” Peter trembled from head to 
foot. His mind was in a whirl. He could not 
understand. 

44 It is useless. Go!” Clarinda turned her 
face from him and walked over to one of the 
windows that gave a view of the garden. 

Peter went out of the room, carrying the 
child with him and left her alone. 


Ill 


For the next day, and the next day, and the 
next day, Clarinda. sat in a stupor. She re¬ 
volved the death of her father about in her 
mind with such rapidity, that she sensed 
nothing of it. A new and curious development 
grasped her, and she could not understand 
what the development portended, or in what di¬ 
rection it was leading. 

The preparations for the funeral, the long 
discussions with her mother as to the proper 
thing to do did not move her. It was a thing 
apart. Everything was mechanical. All passed 
over her head without stirring an emotion. 

When a lucid moment came to her and she 
examined herself, she could not decide if she 
had been cruel or kind in hastening the end of 
the parent she had adored. She tried to talk 
to Peter about it, but Peter would not listen to 
her. Yet out of it, she could not, even though 
she tried, force one iota of pity for the old man. 
It appeared to her to he a peculiar cataclysm. 

She asked herself over and over again, why 
had she thought of killing the child f It was in 
no way responsible for anything. Yet she 

115 


116 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


could have done it and felt no more sorrow 
than she felt at the death of her father. To her 
the child did not represent youth, it represented 
a term of years. It was old enough to die. It 
had life, and her great desire was to crush 
something that had life. She had not done it 
at the moment because it came to her in a flash, 
that the child was too young to appreciate the 
condition under which she suffered. It would 
not have sensed the words she would have said 
to it, before she would have crushed its life out. 
It struck her from this point of view that it 
would have been a useless sacrifice. It would 
have been just as useless to kill Peter, for then 
he would have been dead and removed from 
any further suffering. This would not have 
been wise, for it was her purpose that he 
should feel, where she could see, the degrada¬ 
tion to which he had reduced her, so she let 
him live. 

Peter left her in her solitude. It was only 
broken by the coming and going of her mother 
from time to time. She never asked for the 
child. In a vague way she knew it was being 
taken care of by its numerous nurses and its 
attendant physician, but in her heart she hated 
it, for it represented to her something terrible. 

Peter, however, sought it out and looked af¬ 
ter its material comforts. Peter was afraid to 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


117 


leave it alone. He was frightened at the out¬ 
come of his trial of strength with Clarinda. 
He could see the look on her face as he had en¬ 
tered the room after the sudden death of her 
father and the expression with which she look¬ 
ed at the child as it cooed up at her from the 
floor. He could not make out why he had fol¬ 
lowed her, or what force had compelled him to 
leave her father’s house in the midst of the tur¬ 
moil of the death. For some unknown reason 
he had slipped away to his own home with fear 
grasping his heart, for he presaged a new dis¬ 
aster. Why, he could not tell. 

Day followed day with him even as it fol¬ 
lowed with Clarinda, and the time of the fu¬ 
neral was upon them. Mechanically they went 
to the house, and they sat about for some hours 
before the company came to pay the last rites 
to the owner. 

Clarinda’s mother sat in proper gloomy si¬ 
lence. Her great body heaved at intervals with 
emotion. A tear at times stole down her face. 
She blew her nose, making a noise that ap¬ 
peared painful to Clarinda, and over her face 
was hung a heavy black veil that hid her en¬ 
tirely from the gaze of the people, who gradu¬ 
ally filed in and took seats in prescribed limits. 
Clarinda thought her mother looked like a lump. 
She sat quite near the flower-covered casket 


118 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


that held the body of the old man, and it was 
black, with silver handles. 

Candles gave a fitful light and the tiny blaze 
they bore swung here and there like imprisoned 
souls, that longed to be free. Tiny trails of 
smoke went from them into the air, and the 
smoke melted away in the mass of flowers which 
decorated the mantels and the casket. 

Clarinda like her mother was covered with a 
veil. She looked through it, and it came back 
to her vividly the last time a crowd of people 
had been gathered in this same place. It had 
been decorated as now, except an altar stood 
where the casket was now. It was swept as 
then with a soft breeze when the doors to the 
hall were opened. Almost the same people 
were here now as were here then. A musician 
presided at the organ before and the soft tones 
filled the hall then as now. The only difference 
was that the song was changed. Instead of 
“0 Perfect Love,” it played now, “Nearer, 
My God, to Thee . 9 ’ As then, now a small voice 
sang in the offing and the sweet, gentle tones 
filled the hall even as before. 

Then, there were smiles and tones of laughter 
and now only supressed polite moanings. Sor¬ 
row instead of joy, tears instead of laughter. 
None of the guests weaved his way across the 
polished floors. They sat stiff, immovable. In- 


CLAEINDA THORBALD 


119 


stead of a bridegroom, an undertaker slipped 
noiselessly about the place, like some gnome, 
or bird of ill omen. The priest was still. He 
stood beside the coffin and in a few moments 
read in subdued tones from his rubric and his 
face was drawn and somber. There was none 
of the lightsomeness of the other occasion when 
he had married the man to Clarinda, who sat 
stiff and stolid beside her. 

Peter looked about furtively. He saw the 
mother of Clarinda and wondered why she 
should be so grief-stricken. He had known her 
as a person who delighted in the Church and 
believed perfectly in its history and its mani¬ 
fold benefits. He knew she prayed each night 
that she might be taken up into heaven and 
stand upon the right hand of the Throne of 
Power. He could not understand how with her 
belief she could not have rejoiced at the 
death of this person. To him it was a wonder¬ 
ful release. The fight was done. The struggle 
to hold on to the meagre possessions that this 
one had accumulated was over. He had suc¬ 
ceeded. 

To him the atmosphere was bad. The paid 
pall-bearers were bad, they seemed an incon¬ 
gruous note in the place, he disliked them. He 
hoped in his heart that when he should become 
as the one in the box, that some of his friends 


120 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


would carry him out of his house and place him 
in the hearse. Peter did not fear death. He 
liked to dwell upon it. He liked to try to rea¬ 
son exactly what it meant to him, for he looked 
upon it as a release. He believed nothing and 
feared nothing. Peter scoffed at religion and 
it amused him to discover that the symbols of 
the church were the same as those to which the 
Egyptians bowed thousands of years ago. 

They left the house, and they came back 
again. The dirt had fallen with a hollow sound 
over the bones of the old man. They ate. The 
flowers had disappeared from the hall. The 
servants resumed their same tones of servility 
and nature reasserted itself and life went on as 
before. 

Clarinda and he went back to their own 
house. Peter lit a cigarette, and stretched him¬ 
self. Clarinda sat upon the divan, and didn’t 
think of anything. Time went by her without 
notice. 

Peter blew the smoke from his cigarette into 
the air, and it curled in fantastic waves about 
his head and sank away into nothingness. His 
mind was almost as much a blank as Clarinda’s. 
He could not think, things had happened so 
rapidly that his head was in a whirl and he saw 
the future darkly. 

The maid came into the room and asked 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


121 


quietly whether they desired anything, but re¬ 
ceived no response from either of them. She 
went out as quietly as she had come, and she 
shook her head as she closed the door behind 
her. Under her breath she said as if to her¬ 
self : 

“I’ve seen many just like these. It is the 
end. They will separate. It is bad, and she so 
beautiful.” 

The sun gradually went down and the dark 
came into the room. The things about them 
grew indistinct and the shadows died. The 
wind came up outside and sighed around the 
building. They did not move. Clarinda felt 
the strain. Peter grew nervous and moved his 
feet about on the rug as if to relieve the ten¬ 
sion. Clarinda did not move from the position 
which she took when she first sank upon the 
divan. Her hands hung listlessly by her side 
and her head was sunk back upon one of the 
big cushions. Hour after hour they sat. Peter 
suddenly sprang from the divan and screamed, 
but Clarinda did not move. She seemed not 
to hear him. Peter arose from his seat and 
paced up and down the room. His step was 
nervous, excited and the perspiration gathered 
upon his forehead. He wiped it away with his 
hand. His face became pale and haggard and 
he stumbled over the rugs. It was only with an 


122 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


intense effort that he saved himself from fall¬ 
ing. In an agonized voice he spoke. He was in¬ 
coherent. He spoke rapidly and his words 
tumbled over each other and he wiped his fore¬ 
head again as he stopped in front of her. 

“For God’s sake speak!” he exclaimed. “I 
am going mad. I can’t stand the strain. Say 
something! It is horrible!” 

“I’ve nothing to say,” Clarinda answered 
quietly. 

“You’re a murderess!” he said with a 
trembling voice. He lost control of his speech. 
He kept on talking but he did not know what 
he said. Again he wiped his forehead with his 
open hand. It was wet. 

“Stop!” exclaimed Clarinda. “You don’t 
know what you say. Someone might hear you. 
There are servants in the house. ’ ’ 

“I don’t care. I shall scream it from the 
housetops. I want everyone to know I’ve mar¬ 
ried a murderess.” Peter sank hopelessly 
back upon the divan. 

Clarinda put out her hand and placed it upon 
his arm. Her touch made him shiver. He 
drew away from her. 

“You’re a philosopher, but you’re a liar. 
You teach, but you fear your own teaching. 
You fight and when you lose, you weep. You 
destroy and you give nothing in return.” 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


123 


Clarinda stopped and took her hand from his 
arm and let it hang as it had hung since she 
had first sat down upon coming into the house. 
Peter trembled under her touch and trembled 
more when he lost the feel of her hand upon 
his arm. 

“Put your hand back!” he demanded. Clar¬ 
inda put her hand back and her face broke into 
a weary smile. She even allowed herself to 
pity him in his fear. 

“What do you fear, Peter!” she asked. 
“Where is your philosophy?” Her voice was 
full of sarcasm. “You needn’t fear me. I am 
not going to do you any harm. You needn’t 
fear for the child. I’m not going to do it any 
harm. That would be useless. If I should do 
you harm, you would be finished. You told me 
that when you should die you would be finished. 
I don’t want you to die, I want you to live. I 
want you to see your other woman, the kind 
you wanted to marry. The sort you dreamed 
of in your idle moments, in your office, where 
you built air castles and forgot the human 
factor. ’ ’ 

“I shall divorce you!” he broke in. 

‘ ‘ Oh, no, you won’t. I won’t let you. You’ve 
no grounds. I believe one has to have grounds 
for that sort of thing. But you shall have re¬ 
lief. I am going away for a long time. Months 


124 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


and months, perhaps years. But you will not 
forget me, Peter.’’ 

“Where are you going?” he asked with a 
tone of relief in his voice. “When?” he added. 

“Are you anxious for me to go?” she asked. 
Peter nodded his head in assent. Again he 
wiped his forehead with his hand, but in his 
eyes there came a look of relief. He even look¬ 
ed at her. She seemed different. She seemed 
to him to have expanded, her figure was dif¬ 
ferent, her face was more beautiful and her 
eyes had a strange look in them. 

“Where are you going?” he asked again. 

“In a few days I am going. Where I don’t 
know. Europe I suppose. All broken, un¬ 
happy women go to Europe. They say they 
forget there. It must be the lights, the chairs 
on the boulevards. I may go to California. I 
may not. It makes no difference. You will 
tell lies about me and you will say the strain I 
have been under has been too great, that you 
are sorry that I’ve gone, and that you intend 
to join me in the fall or spring. But you do 
not. You will shake your head and look for 
sympathy and probably you will get it. You 
will lie manfully, Peter.” Clarinda laughed. 
Peter wiped his forehead with his hand. It 
was wet. 

“I shall be divorced!” he repeated. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


125 


“Because my health is broken with the 
strain. No, you won’t, Peter. You won’t be 
divorced. If you do I shall kill you. If you 
besmirch my good name—” Clarinda’s voice 
rose in anger. “I shall come back. It is easy 
to kill. It amounts to nothing. You should 
know, for you killed the thing that loved you. 
You killed a trust. It is worse to kill that than 
anything else. I didn’t die, I couldn’t die. 
More is the pity.” 

“Clarinda!” Peter exclaimed. 

“Listen, I have it all arranged. Tomorrow, 
or the day after. We shall go back to Father’s 
house. The lawyer will be there, he will read 
the will. Father’s things will be given to those 
whom he wished. You will sit there with a 
crease in your forehead and will look wise. You 
will acquiesce and wonder why he did not leave 
you more. Inside your heart will be hurt. You 
will not say anything, you will smile, and pre¬ 
tend to be very much surprised that he has left 
you anything at all. You will draw upon your 
philosophy, and maybe you will be comforted. 
I doubt that very much. It will end in a farce. 
Mother will groan, and feel hurt. I—I shall 
not care. After this is done I shall go away to 
Europe or California or some other place and 
you, Peter, will meet me next fall or spring. 
You will lie.” 


126 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


‘‘ Clarinda!’’ Peter could not understand. He 
could not believe the person who talked was 
Clarinda. He looked at her as if to reassure 
his mind that it was really she. He could not 
think. His mind was in a turmoil. “The 
baby?” he asked. 

‘ ‘ That is yours, you will raise it, you will lie 
to it, you will tell it of its mother, her beauty, 
her cleanness of spirit. You will lie to it as 
you have lied all your life. You will tell it that 
you are going to take it to its mother, and when 
it gets old enough you will lie to it again. You 
will blame me. But you will not tell the child 
the truth. You’ve not the fearlessness to do 
that. You will not tell it that this thing was 
your fault, you will not tell it that the greatest 
failure in your life was of your own making, 
you have not the temerity.” 

“I shall tell the child,” he answered. 

“Oh no you won’t. I know you, Peter. Even 
better than you know yourself. You are a 
coward, Peter, a wonderful coward. This part 
is finished, this chapter is done. You may as 
well go. It is of no avail to talk more. I will 
go with you to my mother’s tomorrow and we 
will listen to the will. Another farce. Good¬ 
bye, Peter. Would you like to kiss me good¬ 
bye? You might think of it afterwards, Peter. 
It might do you good. ’ ’ 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


127 


Peter arose from tlie divan. He looked at 
her squarely in the face. A shiver went down 
his hack. He said nothing but walked to the 
door and opening it quietly as one does on the 
dead, he walked from the room and closed it 
even as gently behind him. 

Clarinda listened to his footfall and it grad¬ 
ually grew more and more indistinct and then 
died out. A silence fell in the place. The dark 
became impenetrable, there was no sound. 
Clarinda gave a great sigh and leaned back 
among the cushions and closed her eyes. 


IV 


In the morning at nine, Clarinda’s maid 
came into her room. Quietly she threw open 
the blinds and drew down the windows. She 
went from one place to another and picked up 
the various articles of clothing Clarinda had 
dropped upon the floor, a stocking, a pair of 
shoes, a skirt. When she had finished she 
turned towards the bed and saw Clarinda sit¬ 
ting up among the covers. Her hair streamed 
down about her shoulders and her eyes blazed 
like two great stars. Dark circles were under 
each of them, as if painted. The maid was 
startled. She came over to the side of the bed. 

41 Madame has not slept. Will Madame have 
a bath?” she asked with hesitation. 

“No,” answered Clarinda shortly. 

“Shall the nurse bring the child?” 

“No,” she answered. 

It had been the custom to bring the baby into 
the room in the morning. Clarinda always took 
it in her arms and would place it so it might 
play among the covers. It amused her. She 
always looked upon it as a phenomenon. She 
could not conceive this vital thing that scrab- 
128 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


129 


bled about, crawling from here to there was 
part of her flesh and blood, that she had 
brought it into the world. When she looked 
at it, she could not imagine it would grow into 
a man’s estate and be a power for good or evil, 
as the fates might carve out for it, that it 
should be a force. It was called Peter. 

“Will Madame dress?” asked the maid. 

“What time is it?” 

“Nine o’clock, Madame.” The maid watch¬ 
ed Clarinda carefully, as if she feared some¬ 
thing. “Will you have your coffee now?” 

“No,” answered Clarinda. 

She rose from the bed and the maid threw a 
garment of light filmy stuff about her. Clar¬ 
inda advanced to the middle of the floor. The 
maid thought she wavered as she stood, as if 
she were uncertain of herself. She walked 
quickly towards her but Clarinda felt her ap¬ 
proach and sank into a chair. 

“I must talk,” Clarinda said quickly. “Say 
something! Do something! Don’t walk about 
the place so aimlessly. It doesn’t matter what 
you say—say something!” 

“You suffer, Madame,” the maid said 
quickly. “You have not slept. Have you some 
terrible trouble?” said the maid stopping as if 
at a loss. Clarinda turned her burning eyes 
upon her. “I don’t know what to say. I know 


130 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


nothing, hut I pity you, Madame, your eyes are 
so bright they scare me.” The maid trembled. 
“You suffer.’’ 

“Yes, I suffer. I suffer horribly.” Clar- 
inda wrung her hands in despair. They drop¬ 
ped listlessly over the edge of the chair. 

“From what, Madame? Why should you 
suffer? You have everything.” 

“I must talk. I’ve no one to talk to.” Clar- 
inda wept as she spoke and the great tears fell 
down her cheeks. 

“Ah! Madame, I pity you, tell me. I will 
be discreet. I promise! I swear! It might 
do you good. It might spare you something. 
I might be able to help . 9 9 

Clarinda arose and walked about the room. 
She went hastily from one end to the other. 
Her arms beat the air. Occasionally she 
brushed the tears from her cheeks. Her eyes 
were bright as they had been, like two burning 
stars. 

“Listen, Tizzia!” she commanded. 

“I am listening, Madame.” 

Clarinda increased her pace. She almost 
ran from one end of the place to the other. The 
filmy garment she wore trailed behind her in 
the wind she made. Her feet were bare and she 
spoke so rapidly she was almost incoherent. 

“Can you imagine, to what a condition I 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


131 


have fallen? I, Clarinda! It can’t be true. 
It must be a horrible dream. He said I killed 
my father, the person I adored. It is not true. 
It is impossible. I loved him and I don’t be¬ 
lieve he is dead. I didn’t go to his funeral. 
Peter says I killed him. Tizzia, I hate Peter!” 
and she turned and looked into the frightened 
face of the maid. 

“Madame!” she exclaimed. 

“Hush! I am talking. At last I can speak. 
Yes, I hate him. No one has ever hated as I 
hate. I even hate the child. He, Peter, said 
I would have killed it. I would have. I knew 
this house meant disaster. The others who 
lived in it met disaster. The man died and his 
wife and his children are in the world—starv¬ 
ing. I knew it meant disaster. I begged Peter 
not to bring me here.” 

“You will be divorced, Madame?” 

Clarinda straightened herself up. Her fig¬ 
ure seemed to add height. She laughed aloud. 
The tones of her voice rattled in her throat, 
and with a struggle she regained herself. 

“No,” she said slowly, each word gathering 
strength, “I will not be divorced.” 

“Probably Madame will go away,” Tizzia 
answered timidly. 

“Did you ever hate, Tizzia? Did you ever 


132 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


hate? Hate so that murder entered your heart, 
so that it became an obsession ?” 

“God forbid!” exclaimed Tizzia with fright 
in her voice. 

“That is not so bad. Murder is not so bad. 
For the thing you kill, dies. It stops. Think 
of me, my position. It is more terrible than if 
I had been murdered. I cannot die. I must 
live. Instead of being dead. I must go to my 
father’s house. I must sit and listen to his 
will. I must appear broken and distraught. I 
must do these things, and in my heart I shall 
fear none of them. I am glad he is dead. I 
am glad I saw him die. Did you ever see any¬ 
one die? It is wonderful. You should have 
seen his frightened old face. You should have 
seen his hands, the blood going from them, dry¬ 
ing up. The veins stood out, and they seemed 
to pulsate. His face was first white, but when 
I spoke to him, it grew gray. His eyes lost 
their luster. His old body wrapped in a great 
cover shrank from me. It cried out for pity. 
I did not pity. I was amused. He was so 
pathetic, so frightened, then he gave a great 
convulsion and he dropped limp, and he was 
still. His body gradually slipped down and 
down until it lay a huddled mass of nothing 
on the floor. I laughed.” Clarinda’s voice 
stuck in her throat. A convulsion passed over 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


133 


her face, and she was fast becoming hysterical. 
She stopped. 

“You must calm yourself, Madame. It is 
necessary. Mr. Thorbald will come. It would 
be bad for him to see you like this.” 

“He will not come. He does not dare. He 
is afraid. He is a coward, Tizzia. Mr. Thor¬ 
bald lies. ,, Clarinda clenched her hands. They 
pained her. 

“Madame must collect herself. Madame 
doesn’t know what she says. It is terrible to 
hear, Madame!” Tizzia exclaimed quickly. 
Her face had become ashen with fear. 

“I know what I say, Tizzia. I know only too 
well. I suffer so. I can’t understand why this 
should have come to me. I’ve tried so hard 
to do the things I thought were right. I’ve 
failed. He told me I had failed. He was right. 
I have failed miserably.” 

A gong rang downstairs and the sound re¬ 
verberated throughout the house. It struck 
Clarinda’s ear as if it would break the drums. 
Clarinda shivered. 

“I must go,” she said. “I must enter the 
car with Peter. I must get out of the house 
and sit beside him. I must show sympathetic 
interest. They will force me to listen and be 
impressed with the things they say. I will do 
it. I will finish the story. I shall not weep. ’ ’ 


134 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Hastily with the aid of the maid, Clarinda 
dressed herself, and did it with meticulous care. 
She charged the maid with lack of attention, 
and time after time, she took her hair down and 
had it re-arranged as often. It never suited her. 
After she had finished and had looked into the 
glass that hung from the ceiling to the floor, 
she went from the room out upon the landing, 
and on down the stairs to the hall, where Peter 
was waiting for her. He turned his eyes to¬ 
wards her as he heard her come. He was filled 
with apprehension, and a slight tremor shook 
his body, his heart stood still. Clarinda bowed 
to him as she passed, but said nothing. He 
likewise did not speak but with a slight bow 
he opened the door for her to pass out. The 
footman at the car, that stood at the bottom 
of the steps, held the door open and they 
entered. 

At a sign from Peter the car moved slowly 
out of the garden, and then went more rapidly 
down the street. In a few moments it drew 
up in front of the house of her late father. 
Again the footman opened the door and offered 
his arm to aid her but she paid no attention to 
him, and quickly went into the house. 

In the library to the right of the main en¬ 
trance she found her mother sitting in gloomy 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


135 


silence. Clarinda spoke to her and found her¬ 
self a seat some distance from her where she 
sat in a deep shadow. There was no sound. 
Peter sought to sit close to her, hut Clarinda 
turned her eyes upon him and he went away 
and sat quite near her mother. Clarinda was 
alone in her portion of the room. She seemed 
to be set apart, as if she had nothing to do 
with the affair. 

At a large table especially arranged sat a 
man, clothed in black like an undertaker. His 
head was large, his forehead protruded, and 
upon his nose rested a pair of glasses over 
which he looked. His air was pompous, and 
he seemed oppressed with his knowledge. To 
Clarinda he looked foolish. Before him upon 
the table lay a mass of papers, documents of 
parchment, and upon the floor propped up by 
the legs of his chair, stood portentous bags 
of leather with silver clasps. Impressive bits 
of red string lay among the documents. Clar¬ 
inda looked at him, for he amused her. He 
looked so false, so pretentious, so unnecessary. 
She watched him move. He was being paid for 
his pantomime, and his pay would be in pro¬ 
portion to the bulge of his forehead. 

After he had bowed to all those present, and 
spoken to each by his proper name, he cleared 
his throat. Then he wiped his forehead with a 


136 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


huge white handkerchief, which he placed on 
the table beside him. It looked like a mountain 
with peaks and turrents of intense white. To 
Clarinda it seemed part of his pretensions. 

Accordingly, having duly impressed his hear¬ 
ers, he picked up a thick document, which was 
folded many times. Carefully he pressed out 
each crease. With slow precision he arose from 
the chair he occupied, and looked at the com¬ 
pany over his glasses and read. 

For a long time his voice went on monoton¬ 
ously. There was no inflection; he might have 
been reading to a court. He only stopped now 
and then to glance at Clarinda’s mother, at 
Peter, or at Clarinda. It seemed to Clarinda 
he would never finish, as if he would go on 
forever. Eventually the final sheet of the docu¬ 
ment was turned and he stopped as if he were 
an actor and waited for applause. When it did 
not come, he appeared disappointed. 

Clarinda gathered nothing from the reading 
of the will. Peter smiled at the amount he re¬ 
ceived, and he was pleased. Peter loved money. 
Clarinda’s mother knew equally as much as 
Clarinda. She was entirely in the dark. They 
both knew they had been left something, but 
neither knew just how much or what. 

‘ 1 A wonderful will, ’ 1 said the lawyer. ‘ 4 Fair, 
comprehensive, unbreakable .' ’ 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


137 


Clarinda arose from her chair. She walked 
over to the table and picked up the will from 
among the other papers. 

“What do I have under this will?” she asked. 

“Your father has treated you magnificently,” 
the lawyer replied. 

“I didn’t ask that,” she said tersely. 

The man picked up the will, quickly turned 
over a few of the pages. “You will find,” he 
said, reading carefully with the same lack of 
intonations, “under paragraph one, section A, 
page five and upon the subsequent page. ‘I 
hereby leave and bequeath to my beloved 
daughter the sum of three hundred thousand 
dollars, free of all tax. ’ In section B, page six, 
paragraph five, you will find that this sum of 
money has been left in trust. You are to be 
free of any control of this money, and at your 
death, should you leave any children, they shall 
come into your share when they shall have at¬ 
tained the age of thirty-five. A fine proviso,” 
he added. “Per capita and not per stirpes. 
This refers to your mother’s portion.” 

“Why that?” asked Clarinda. 

He did not answer Clarinda’s question. “You 
will find that this money is free from any super¬ 
vision by your husband and the increment 
thereof shall be paid to you by your said trus¬ 
tees.” He added again, “A fine proviso.” 


138 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


“Who are the trustees?” asked Clarinda. 

“I have the honor of being one of them, and 
the Safety and Guarantee Trust Company is 
the other / 1 

1 ‘Is Peter*s left in trust?” she asked. 

1 ‘ Oh no, ’ 9 he replied, with a look of astonish¬ 
ment. “Men as a rule do not need trustees. 
They have more experience / 9 

“I just wanted to know.” Clarinda’s voice 
carried a peculiar tone. The lawyer looked at 
her searchingly. Peter turned his eyes towards 
her. Her mother sat in the same gloom and 
the same lack of understanding of what was 
taking place. Her mind only grasped the idea 
that in some way she was provided for, that this 
will had made her independent. Through her 
mind fled visions of what she would do, she 
even thought she would like to travel. 

“That is all?” asked Clarinda, as she moved 
away from the table after laying the will upon 
it. 

“I believe so,” answered the lawyer. Ap¬ 
parently not quite certain of himself. Clar¬ 
inda’s manner broke in upon his usual method 
of carrying forward proceedings of the kind. 
He was upset, he could not exactly define why. 

Clarinda bowed to him and nodded her head 
to her mother. She went out of the room and 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


139 


left them still sitting. Her mother was non¬ 
plussed. Peter did not go after her. 

Clarinda entered the car, and ordered the 
driver to take her back home. 


y 


As the car left the front of the house, after 
the reading of the will, it went down the road¬ 
way to the street. At the lodge gates stood the 
old keeper who had been there many years. 
He it was who smiled and swept the clean 
gravel with his cap the day she had been mar¬ 
ried. He bowed again in the same way and his 
hat touched the clean gravel again as she went 
by. He smiled again, but now his smile seemed 
to be more sinister; it carried, as Clarinda 
looked at him, more terrible futility with it than 
it had at the former time. 

Clarinda trembled as she huddled back in her 
seat of the car. She tried to blot him out from 
her mind, but his old face clung. He gave her 
more occasion for thought, but soon he was 
gone. The car went rapidly on its way, and 
it was only a few moments until it stopped in 
front of the place Peter called home. 

Clarinda got out of the car and went hur¬ 
riedly into the house, straight through the hall. 
She saw nothing, not even the servants who 
stood clustered about. They winked at one 
another and nodded their heads knowingly. 

140 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


141 


In some manner they sensed with that peculiar 
intuition which hangs about servants that they 
were on the brink of a tragedy, the household, 
like many they had seen before, was disrupted 
—gone. Already they were turning over in 
their minds the finding of service elsewhere. 
Truthfully they hated the thought of the new 
applications they would have to file. It both¬ 
ered them. The door boy, the man in buttons 
who handed the silver tray for the cards of the 
visitors, the housekeeper, all of them even to 
the scullery maid, were disgruntled. They liked 
the place. The stealings were easy and there 
was very little work to do. 

Mrs. Caws stood close to the entrance like 
a bird of prey. She watched with eager eyes 
everything that happened. She, too, thought 
of the next place where she could get employ¬ 
ment, and a smile crossed her lips. It was bit¬ 
ter, hard, and seemed full of anticipation. She 
loved disaster to come to such as Clarinda and 
Peter. It pleased her that people of the kind 
that Clarinda and Peter represented should go 
down from their great estate. She, in her nar¬ 
row soul hated the rich, although it was from 
the rich that she was able to live. 

Clarinda did not see her any more than she 
had seen the rest of them. She hastened to 
her room and after she had entered she closed 


142 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


the door tightly behind her. Then quickly she 
rang the bell that stood upon a table near the 
divan. The maid entered, her face was drawn, 
there were evidences of tears upon it, her cheeks 
were flushed and her eyes were red. 

“Madame, did you ring?” she asked. 

Clarinda nodded her head. Presently she 
sat down upon the divan. Carefully she placed 
herself in its corner and tucked her body into 
the cushions and after removing her hat, she 
laid her head wearily back. A sigh left her 
lips, and it was so deep that it seemed to come 
from the depths of her heart. Her face was 
set, there was no sign of weakening. A bitter 
look had come into her eyes. The usual beau¬ 
tiful blue of them had died. They had become 
gray. A deep—dark gray. 

After a long period of silence she said short¬ 
ly as if speaking to herself, “That is over.” 

“What is over, Madame?” 

“Tizzia,” she continued, “after I am gone— 
after all this horrible life that I’ve had to lead 
is over, I want you to think of me, not as you 
see me now, but as you knew me when you first 
came into this place. When you do think of 
me, you must not forget that I feared the place. 
I don’t know why, but I did fear it.” 

“Yes, Madame,” answered Tizzia. “I shall 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


143 


be happy to do so. You are going away!” 
she ventured timidly. 

Clarinda looked at her as if appraising her, 
as if trying to decide whether she asked ques¬ 
tions from interest in her, or only from the 
spirit of inquisitiveness. The maid stood in 
front of her. Her whole being to Clarinda 
seemed to betoken sorrow at her condition, and 
it gave Clarinda confidence. 

‘‘You know,” Clarinda went on. She spoke 
slowly thinking deeply of every word she ut¬ 
tered. “I don’t trust you. I don’t know if 
your apparent interest is from curiosity or just 
from the liking you have for other people’s sor¬ 
rows. ’ ’ 

“Ah, Madame! I am sorry you said that!” 
she broke in quickly. “I don’t want your con¬ 
fidence—unless Madame feels I am not just 
curious. I sympathize with you, Madame, 
deeply. I’ve seen something of life, too, Ma¬ 
dame, I, too, am a woman. I—” 

Clarinda arose from the divan, and she strode 
about the room. She took great steps, as if in 
their length she could find relief. 

Presently, she spoke quickly, not stopping her 
march. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you 
listen to me from curiosity or from real sym¬ 
pathy. I must talk to someone. It might as 
well be you. I’ve no one in the world to turn 


144 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


to. You don’t know the desperateness of such 
a situation. The meanest people in the world 
usually have someone. Sit down there!” she 
commanded. 

“I would rather stand, please, Madame.” 

“Sit down!” 

Tizzia sat down. She placed her body upon 
the extreme edge of the chair. Clarinda still 
walked. She spoke loudly, without intermit- 
tence, and her words fell over one another, yet 
she appeared to think of each word as she ut¬ 
tered it. The maid listened and followed as 
best she could. At times the maid wept. At 
other times she trembled with fear, then again 
she thought Clarinda would drop from exhaus¬ 
tion. It seemed to her that she ran instead of 
walked from one end of the room to the other. 

“ I’ve thought it all out, Tizzia! I’ve thought 
it all out! Last night I didn’t sleep. I walked 
this room and my bedroom all night. I heard 
you come along the hall. I waited for you to 
come. It seemed to me as if it were years— 
years and years! You would be surprised how 
long it is from daylight to daylight, when you 
are waiting for some one. The hours are so 
long. The time goes so slowly. I don’t know 
how I lived through those hours. It was ter¬ 
rible, but it is over, it is gone! I’ve done my 
duty today. I’ve heard the will read, I am rich. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


145 


I am under the domination of a little man and a 
great Trust Company.” Clarinda laughed. 
“I’ve three hundred thousand dollars, and when 
my mother dies, I shall have hundreds of thou¬ 
sands more. After I am dead, it goes to the 
child. He will be rich. Isn’t that splendid for 
him!” Clarinda’s voice rang with bitter sar¬ 
casm. For a moment she stopped in her march 
and stood in front of Tizzia. “Are you listen¬ 
ing, Tizzia!” she asked. Tizzia nodded her head 
in assent. 

“I am going away. Yes, Tizzia, I am going 
away. I am going to know an entirely different 
life. I am going to have lovers. I shall sell 
myself to the highest bidder—to some man who 
will buy my body with his filthy dollars. I 
shall find out whether this creature, man, places 
more value upon a woman whom he actually 
buys at so much per pound, than upon the 
woman who comes to him with love in her heart. 
Yes, I shall know the world! I shall know. I 
shall go away. ’ 9 Clarinda’s eyes narrowed. She 
went on slowly. Tizzia did not move from the 
edge of her chair. 

“Peter, the lovely, gracious, Peter—the suc¬ 
cessful Peter, the Peter whom my father pat¬ 
ted upon the back and told how wonderful he 
was—wonderful, because he could filch a few 
more dollars than another man. He shall know 


146 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


how I am doing. He shall be told, by me, of 
every step I take. He shall feel the degra¬ 
dation to which I shall fall—he, this lovely 
Peter, thinks because I am a woman—I shall 
weaken. He thinks no woman can stand up 
against the force projected by man. This won¬ 
derful person thinks that I being a woman 
should sue for pity, that in the end, I will come 
back to him, grovel at his feet and ask him to 
give me respectability. Men think this sort 
of thing because a woman has borne him a 
child. Poor, foolish creature! I am going to 
destroy myself not with a knife, nor a pistol, 
nor with poison. But I am going to destroy 
myself—kill all those finer things which are of 
me. I am going to the dregs. I shall suffer. 0! 
I shall suffer miserably. I hate the touch of 
men, Tizzia! But I am going to teach myself 
to bear it.” 

Clarinda stopped as if for breath. She still 
walked up and down the room at a furious 
pace. 

“0! Madame, you can’t! You don’t know 
what you say,” Tizzia broke in, and there were 
tears in her voice. 

“0, yes, I do. I know exactly what I say. 
More’s the pity,” Clarinda answered quickly. 
“Can you imagine me in a brothel? It is 
laughable. But I am going. I am going to 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


147 


have a lover. I want a lover. I’ve always 
wanted a lover. When I married I thought that 
was what I was getting. I did not. But now 
I shall have one. It will be wonderful to give 
oneself to a lover—a man! Probably I shall 
get one who has committed a great crime. We 
shall always live in fear of the police. Prob¬ 
ably he may have killed some one for a lot of 
money. When I meet him he will have great 
piles of bills, and we will sneak out at night 
and spend it—always in fear. He will beat me. 
He will get drunk and be brutal. But he will be 
a man! And after all it may happen I shall 
learn to love him.” Clarinda laughed. Her 
laugh scared Tizzia, even more than her words. 
Tizzia did not believe she meant what she said. 
But when she laughed she thought it might be 
true. That she would do as she said. 

Clarinda continued: “And this man—this 
criminal with whom I shall live, to whom I 
shall give my body, he will probably desert me 
when I am getting the least bit old. I will feel 
this age coming upon me, then I shall paint my 
face. I will fight age. I shall learn how it is 
done. Every year that comes upon me will 
make me suffer more—for I know men only love 
youth. They hate age. They want only the 
young. But that will be a long way off. I am 
only twenty-three! It might happen that this 


148 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


lover of mine, kills me in one of his drunken 
fits. What a glorious heritage to leave Peter ’s 
boy. His mother killed in a brothel by a crim¬ 
inal, a murderer. What a headline for the 
newspapers. Mrs. Clarinda Tlaorbald, the wife 
of Mr. Peter Thorbald the successful banker, 
murdered in a brothel. I hope it happens. It 
would be a glorious end to a great career. 0, 
it is wonderful!’ 9 

Clarinda walked over to the window, and said 
nothing further. She appeared to have talked 
herself out. A great calm descended upon her. 
Tizzia arose from her chair. She did not know 
what to do. She stood uncertainly in the mid¬ 
dle of the room. Clarinda heard her as she 
moved. She turned. 

4 ‘You will pack my things, Tizzia. Put all 
my jewelry in the bags. It is foolish to go 
without anything. That is quixotic. I must 
take my money, too. It is easier to get a lover 
with money than without. 9 ’ 

“You will change your mind about the rest, 
Madame. You are too good to do the horrible 
things you say. Madame is excited. When you 
have thought the matter over you will think 
again . 9 9 

Clarinda looked at Tizzia. “How little you 
know me,” she said. Her voice was weary. 
Tizzia could barely hear what she said. “How 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


149 


little everybody knows me. How different it 
might have been if Peter had known me. I 
regret Peter, for once I loved him. He was 
the one great thing in my life, but he has died.” 

“The child, Madame?” 

“It belongs to Peter. I only brought it into 
the world. It is only my flesh and blood. It 
amounts to nothing. I wish it joy. I hate it! 
I could have loved it madly. But that, too, is 
dead.” 

Tizzia went into the other room. She left 
Clarinda and began to put the things she 
wanted into the various bags. Lovingly she 
took down from the closets the many dresses 
Clarinda had loved. With delicate touch she 
folded each garment and placed it in the great 
trunks. She rang a bell and ordered more 
trunks brought into the room. The man who 
brought them ventured to ask what they were 
for. Was Madame going away? Tizzia did 
not answer. She wept incessantly. The tears 
fell from her cheeks and spotted the delicate 
fabrics. 

Clarinda left alone threw herself down upon 
the divan. Time went by. The clock ticked as 
if nothing was taking place—as if the old life 
was just the same, as if happiness had not left 
the house. 


150 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Finally speaking to herself, she said: “It 
must come. Why not now?” 

She arose from the divan, went out of the 
door leading to the rooms in which Peter lived. 
Quietly she opened the door. Over at a table 
she saw Peter. He was writing. His head 
was bent and he was absorbed in his task. His 
pen flew with rapidity. He did not hear her 
come in, nor did he hear the door close behind 
her. She spoke and Peter jumped from his 
seat. His face was pale, drawn, distorted. His 
brow she saw was covered with perspiration. 
As he moved, he wiped his forehead with his 
hand. He stood and stared at her. 

Clarinda stood upon the opposite side of the 
table. She looked down upon him. As he 
jumped from his seat, he stood as if paralyzed. 
He did not seem able to move. 

“Goodbye, Peter.” There was extreme sor¬ 
row in her voice. It quavered and trembled 
as she spoke. 

“You are going?” he asked timidly. 

“Yes, it is done. I have failed you. I am 
sorry. It was so full of promise, Peter. Our 
life could have been happy. But I have failed. ’ ’ 

“You cannot! You cannot!” His hands 
shook. The tears fell down his cheeks unre¬ 
sisted by him. His knees weakened under him. 
He fell back into his chair and buried his head 


CLAEINDA THOEBALD 


151 


in his hands upon the table. His great body 
shook with intense grief, and Clarinda pitied 
him, but her mind did not change. 

“I am going, Peter. I am going away now, 
today. The maid is packing for me. Goodbye 
Peter.’’ 

Peter moaned. “No—no—no! I can’t 
bear it! You can’t go! I won’t let you! It is 
impossible!” 

“It is done, Peter.” 

Clarinda turned and went slowly towards the 
door. Her hand fell gently upon the knob. 
Quietly she opened it. As Peter saw her go, he 
sprang from his chair. He held his arms out¬ 
stretched towards her. The door came open 
slowly. Quietly Clarinda passed from the 
room, and the door closed softly behind her. 

Peter screamed in his anguish. His soul was 
torn and he fell inert upon the floor. The dark 
took him, and his eyes closed. 


















STAGE THREE 

















Dear Peter: 

I knew it would come. But I wished to put 
it off until the chance for a change was impossi¬ 
ble. I’ve waited years for the time. I had 
planned in my mind how I should do this thing 
I am about to do, with infinite care. Each step 
was watched and taken even as the blind walk, 
even when I left the house I intended to do this 
thing. 

I wonder if you have ever read, i ‘The Woman 
in White”? And if in the reading you remem¬ 
ber Count Fosco? You know he is the only 
fat villain in any book. One thing he did I 
want to draw to your mind. It is the most 
trivial thing in the whole book. You know, if 
you have read the book, that after he was dis¬ 
covered and the things he had done were set 
before him in all their hideousness, he sat 
down and wrote his confessions. They covered 
innumerable sheets. The description by Col¬ 
lins of how he gradually became buried in the 
pages is wonderfully drawn. You could see 
him, Fosco, with the perspiration pouring down 
his fat face, and his hand holding the pen flying 
over the sheets. I shall be Fosco buried in 
sheets. That will, however, be my only likeness 

155 


156 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


to him, for I do not consider myself a villain. 
I am merely a woman. 

Let ’s see. This is a very difficult task. I do 
not know where to begin. Shall I start at this 
end? Or shall I take it up from the time I left 
the house? Our house. I was horribly alone. 
You will never understand how poignantly 
alone I was; but that is neither here nor there. 

I’ve decided, even in the writing of these 
first lines where I shall begin. I am going to 
start with the now and go back. That is I mean 
to, but I do not promise to keep it up. It is a 
long story—a miserable history. I’ve sought 
for breaks in it, but I’ve discovered none. Re¬ 
member, Peter, I am not sorry. I feel precisely 
as I did about the whole matter, as I did the 
day I walked from the house. I’ve not relented, 
even at this late date. I am not sorry; I do 
not regret. I repeat this statement in order 
that it may be impressed clearly upon your 
mind. I don’t want you to think I am pleading 
for pity. I am not. I neither crave your sym¬ 
pathy nor your change of feeling. I hope you 
get this point exactly. 

How time flies. You are sixty-two. I am 
forty-eight. We are both going down the hill, 
and we are going down alone. It might have 
been otherwise. The boy is twenty-three. I 
saw him when he was fifteen. I saw him again 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


157 


when he was twenty, and again when he was 
twenty-one. I went where he was out of idle 
curiosity. I wanted to see what this thing of my 
flesh and blood had grown into. I was pleased 
and I was not. I thought he ought to have 
looked better. I wondered what he would have 
been under my influence, and had had the ad¬ 
vantage of a mother’s love. My friends tell 
me that a boy needs this sort of thing to lift him 
over the hard places. Curiously enough I did¬ 
n’t want to speak to him. I didn’t long to hold 
him in my arms, nor did I feel any desire to 
have him know me. I wonder whether that is 
normal. Most mothers, I suppose, would have 
gone to him and taken him in their arms, and 
begged him in a melodramatic way for his love. 
I desired no such thing. It may be that my life 
has been confused. I don’t know. However, 
that is neither here nor there. When I left you 
he was buried. I always looked upon him as a 
disgrace. He was not in my mind purely born. 
He was my stigma. So, he is of me and not 
of me. I will speak of him no more. 

I look back upon my life as a series of devel¬ 
opments. First, my youth—full of hope, gay, 
protected, luxurious, a timid child with no con¬ 
ception of life, a thing raised untutored, pushed 
into a willing marriage. I wanted to marry 
you. It was a consuming desire upon my part. 


158 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


I hoped so and I loved so. I thought you were 
wonderful. It gave me a thrill when you came 
home. I looked upon you as a super-man—un¬ 
conquerable. Then gradually the veil was rent 
asunder. You did the tearing and you did it 
thoroughly. You destroyed me. I, however, 
felt it come and I tried hard to fight it out. My 
aim was to conquer the thing so that you and I, 
Peter, should lead an ideal existence—that we 
should have children, that love should radiate 
about us, like a glorious sun, on a glorious 
summer day. You killed this. You wanted 
money, success—futile, necessary money. 

Remember, Peter, I don’t blame you for all 
the misfortune, as I may have been equally at 
fault. I couldn’t advance as rapidly as you 
did. I suppose it arose from the fact that I 
wanted you and not the world. I wanted chil¬ 
dren, and I wanted a home. I wanted to be 
separated from the frivolities of life. I wanted 
the burden of your happiness. 

It may have been my fault in that I wanted 
to have you believe that in me and in me alone 
was the lodestar of all your hopes. In the de¬ 
velopment of that part of me, with no end of 
thought, I failed. I’ve always failed. I can’t 
understand why, but the fact remains. 

I remember—it was a long time ago, many, 
many years. With what perturbation I was 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


159 


filled that first time you went away without 
kissing me goodbye. That was a tiny omission, 
but it was an interstice. Then I knew it came 
out of the blue. I knew I was slipping, that 
outside things were grasping you, and I sensed 
this thing clearly. Then I fought—I fought to 
recover, but although I fought I lost. I 
lost more and more. Each losing infinitely 
small. I mean each slip towards the disinter- 
gration; but to me these slips were monu¬ 
mental. I developed. I passed in a few short 
moments into another stage. 

My second stage. I wonder as I write this 
whether you will read it and whether if you do 
you will be able to understand what I want to 
convey to you. Sometimes as I read what I 
write I think I may have missed the point. 

In my second stage, I awoke from a poor be¬ 
draggled, dispirited woman. I became mad. 
I lost all sense of proportion. I magnified 
things you had done to me into things without 
proper ratios. I even had the termerity to 
gloat while my Father died. This was a curious 
experience. I looked back upon it with wonder. 
I can’t understand exactly how it could have 
happened. I can’t exactly define my frame of 
mind. It must have arisen because I blamed 
him, even as much as I did you, for the condi¬ 
tion in which I found myself. 


160 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Of course, my Mother was a negligible quan¬ 
tity in my life. And from the things I have 
learned concerning her since her death, her sor¬ 
row over the tragedies that surrounded her life 
were but passing affairs which did not seem in 
any way to approach her. She seemed to sense 
nothing except her material side. Everything 
was cast from her as a snake sheds its skin. 
From her I received life and from her I got 
nothing except life. 

It was different in the case of my Father. 
He loved me, and I know now as I look back 
that he adored me. His one ambition in life 
was to make existence for me as free from all 
source of worry as the human can. But he 
failed, and he failed because his perspective 
was bad. He didn’t understand the longings 
of a real woman. He knew the world from a 
man’s point of view. There he stopped. He 
knew nothing of it from a love’s point of view. 
He loved, but he loved materially. I asked him 
once whether he loved Mother as much as when 
he married her. He could not answer. He 
knew his love had left her and centered about 
his own success, which meant money and posi¬ 
tion—the flattery of men. 

I am hastening these two developments be¬ 
cause I want to tell you of the third stage of 
my life—the third development, and what it 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


161 


has cost me, how I arrived at this stage at 
which I find myself and what if anything I 
have gained by my conduct towards you. 

There is a curious thing comes to my mind. 
It may not strike you exactly as it does me. But 
I am going to mention it for the reason that it 
interests me. You, Peter, even today, are the 
only thing in life as far as I am concerned, and 
it took the greatest amount of determination to 
withstand the temptation which assailed me. 

Many times in the past twenty-odd years I 
have gotten out of my bed with the firm deter¬ 
mination to come back to you. To say that 
probably after all I was wrong, that I laid too 
much stress upon the condition in which I found 
myself. You know, or probably you have not 
thought it out—that once a woman gives herself 
to a man, once she has borne him children, her 
whole heart, her whole life is wrapped up in 
the one experience. Women are not like men. 
They are monogamous. There is barely a 
woman in the world who has given herself to 
one man, and afterwards goes through a di¬ 
vorce court or leaves him, that at times she 
does not feel within herself an urge that is 
nearly unconquerable to go back to that man. 
Women re-marry and they live in what is sup¬ 
posed to be contentment, but in their hearts 
there is no contentment. 


162 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


You will never know the tugs I have had or 
the strength I have used to carry out this thing 
to its bitter end, but I was certain to do this. 

Eight years after I had gone from the house, 
I stood for hours outside the wall. I looked 
through the bars of the gate. I looked upon 
the garden. There was a light in the room in 
which you had placed the divan—the dear old 
divan, with the soft light burning behind it. I 
stood for hours on a clear night. The moon 
shone through the trees, and I could see the 
flowers. I could even make out the fountain 
around which we had walked and you had told 
me of what you had done during the day. This 
only happened once—a walk such as this. What 
joy that walk gave me. I feel it even now. The 
great door was open. The light beckoned to 
me. It invited me to come. It seemed to say, 
“Enter, and you will be forgiven. Love waits 
for you.” I shook with fear. For I was afraid 
that I might weaken. 

I walked furiously up and down the pave¬ 
ment. My eyes were pinned upon that light, 
and except for the light that fled through the 
front doors everything else was dark. Nowhere 
was there a single light except in that one 
room. I thought I could see you in it. I won¬ 
dered whether you were happy. I didn’t be¬ 
lieve you were. Somehow I saw you much 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


163 


changed. Yon were gray. Your shoulders were 
not full. You seemed to me to he stooped. I 
wondered if I went in how you would greet 
me. I was afraid. 

It was late when I left. Midnight. The light 
still burned. It struck me as curious. I won¬ 
dered why this was so. After I went away, I 
knew I had made a mistake. I should have 
gone in to you. I should have walked up to that 
little room and sat myself down upon the divan, 
and if you were not there I should have waited. 
I believe now and I believed then that you 
would have taken me in your arms and com¬ 
forted me. You would not have berated me. 
You didn’t know how lonely I had been. But, 
Peter, I failed you. You told me so. 

I left as I say, at midnight. I walked past 
my father’s house. Some one was laughing in 
there. New people. People who had children. 
Life. The lights were all lit. It looked so gay. 
I believe I wept. A man came out upon the 
porch. I could see him from the lodge gates. 
He put out his hand as if to see if it rained. 
He did not see the moon. I thought that so 
funny. He went back again, closed the door 
and after sometime the lights began to go down 
one by one, and finally the house became dark. 
It was so peaceful. And I was so unhappy. So 
lacking in peace. 

I thought of all that I had done in that old 


164 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


house. I saw my early life again. I felt its 
happiness creep over me. I felt my father at 
my side. I saw him stand by me. I conld al¬ 
most feel the grasp of his hand. His breath 
fanned my cheek. And it seemed to me he whis¬ 
pered in my ear. He said with such depth in 
his voice, “I forgive you Clarinda. I pity you. 
Go back.” The thing became so vivid to me, 
that I turned and ran. I don’t know how far 
I ran; but I ran until a man stopped me. He 
said, 4 ‘Why do you run! Are you scared! Has 
anything happened to you!” 

I fled from him. I ran further until I was 
nearly dropping with exhaustion, then I stop¬ 
ped. I was far from your house. Far down in 
the city. It was terrible to me. Then I walked 
rapidly. It was getting late. A bell in a tower 
near by struck two. 

I have never been back since. That hap¬ 
pened years ago. But even although it hap¬ 
pened years ago, it is as fresh in my mind as 
if it took place yesterday. I conquered myself. 
I didn’t go back to you. My second develop¬ 
ment had taken place. My second stage had 
been gone through with. I was different. I 
was no more the Clarinda you married. My 
old self had died. You would not have loved 
me any more. It would have been impossible. 

It is night, Peter. Good-night. 

C. 


Dear Peter: 

I am continuing the letter I wrote you some¬ 
time ago. Of course, I am sending you these 
as a compilation. They are not in series; for 
if I should do that you would lose the trend. 
Probably you would become bored and when 
these letters came from time to time, you might 
throw them in the waste basket. It is impossi¬ 
ble for me to judge your frame of mind from 
this distance after all these years. I cannot 
judge into what you have developed. 

However, the firsl part is finished and the 
second part is also done with. This is the 
third part. The drawing of the thing to a con¬ 
clusion—a finishing of it all. And after this is 
done, I shall sit down by my window and look 
out upon the passing world and wonder how 
long I shall live. How soon I shall have peace 
—a thing I have never had, or ever known. 

I remember the day I left. It was cruel. 
You recollect the sky. The sun did not shine. 
The flowers in the garden as I went seemed to 
tuck their heads down under their leaves as if 
seeking protection from the cold. It was not 
cold. It was raining. It was warm. 

I entered the car. I closed the door by my- 

165 


166 


CLAEINDA THOEBALD 


self. It appeared to me as if some one was 
closing me in some place, just as if I were being 
penned in a great prison, from which I should 
never come out. I shivered, Peter. 

The last face I saw was that of Tizzia who 
stood at one of the windows. The tears were 
running down her face. Frantically she waved 
her hand to me, and then she was gone. It was 
all gone—the house, you and my happiness. 

I wonder if Tizzia told you of my last conver¬ 
sation with her—the threats I made of the 
things I should do. I often think of that con¬ 
versation and the stress I was under at the 
time. Funny as it may appear to you I did 
those things. I went forth from you—from all 
the things I thought were right and good. 

You should have seen the man. I met him a 
short time after I left. His name was Bill— 
Slippery Bill, he was called. A vicious man. 
A drunkard of the most horrible kind. His 
mind was a morass of immorality. His sense 
of humor was beating a woman. He had killed 
one person, and when he was drunk he bragged 
to me and described how his victim had moaned 
and begged. He loved to tell me of the thing 
he killed. Of course, it was a woman. He was 
just a man—a coward. 

Bill was a thief—a second-story man. One 
who lies in wait until a house is empty and 


CLAEINDA THORBALD 


167 


then goes in safely. When he would steal he 
would come to me in the hovel we lived in and 
throw the things he had got on the table, 
and gloat on them, and brag about the ease 
with which he did this sort of thing. After that 
he would get drunk. For days and weeks he 
was in this condition. He amused me. He was 
so futile. His operations so foolish. With half 
the effort he could have made a good living. 

Bill hated work. He wanted to live in what 
he called ease. Poor foolish Bill! He feared 
everything. The crack of a twig, the sound of 
the wind, a strange footstep. It was always 
the law coming for him. The police! He even 
feared me and sometimes in his frenzy of fear 
he would beat me. He thought I might betray 
him. It amused me. His fear was queer. I 
laughed at it when he was gone on one of his 
missions. 

I met this creature not long after I had gone 
from you. I went down into the depths of 
shame and poverty. I lived in one tiny room. 
Around me was a host of queer furtive people 
who lived from day to day—seeking always 
something that might keep them until the 
morrow. It was sad, but it was interesting. I 
went to their haunts. I soon became known to 
them. I even acquired their furtive habits. I 
appeared to be seeking like they, the things that 


168 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


would keep me until the next day. Sometimes 
even in their extreme poverty they laughed. I 
would pretend that I had a good night. That I 
had seen some man who gave me part of what 
he had and I would give to them. A dollar now 
and then. Once I gave a poor old man, who 
had lived in his horrors for years, a five-dollar 
bill. You should have seen him. He became 
my shadow. There was no thankfulness in his 
manner. He thought he could get more. I 
found him in my room, going through my 
things. He found nothing. I took care of that. 
I cursed him for his temerity. He shrank out 
of the place, but he came back, for he hoped. 

I came across Bill only four weeks after 
I left you. It was a short time after I took the 
miserable room in this quarter of this city. 
What city doesn’t make any difference. But it 
was not so far from you that I couldn’t watch 
you and what you did. 

You should have seen the dive—dirt, ill¬ 
smelling, horrible. A ragged crew came and 
went. I entered, and I was poorly dressed— 
that is I had on the kind of finery of the people 
of the class I tried to identify myself with. I 
looked the part. I sat at one of the broken- 
down tables—filthy with stale beer and smear¬ 
ed with old pieces of cheese. Oh, how it smelt! 

Bill was standing at the bar. He was par- 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


169 


tially drunk. He turned, as I sat down, and 
he saw me. A curious light went over his face, 
and I knew here was the man! The man who 
should teach me whether men loved women 
from their pound value or from love. 

Drunkenly he walked over to the table and 
leaned his great bony knuckles upon it. He 
didn’t take off his hat. He looked at me. Even 
though I was dressed so badly, I was beautiful. 

He spoke to me, I nodded my head. He or¬ 
dered a glass of beer for me. He drank a con¬ 
coction which he called whiskey. He was ter¬ 
ribly dirty. Then he sat down. I looked at him. 
Rarely have I seen such a repulsive creature 
as he was. A great head covered with long 
shaggy hair, that curled in a mass. His eyes 
were blue—a deep blue. In them one could see 
the depths of depravity he had sunk to. His 
mouth was weak and sloppy, but his chin, cov¬ 
ered with a few days’ beard, was strong. He 
looked brutal. And, Peter, he was brutal. 

“ Where are you from?” he asked. 

“Nowhere,” I replied. I drank a little of 
the beer. He swallowed the drink he had be¬ 
fore him at a gulp. He appeared to throw it 
down his throat. I noticed that none of the 
muscles either contracted or expanded with the 
effort. 

“Who are you?” h& asked. 


170 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


“No one , 91 I replied. 

“Where do you live?” he persisted. 

I turned from him and arose from the table 
and left him staring after me. I knew he would 
follow. He did. We went out of the place to¬ 
gether. t 

“My wife is dead,” he said. 

“Weill” I answered. 

“I want another.” 

We stood outside of the door upon the 
pavement. In the light that came through the 
dirty windows. I moved away from him. 

That was the beginning of the life I led with 
him. It was a curious sort of thing. He began 
to love me. He sought me out everywhere I 
went. There were many others. But Bill in¬ 
terested me more than any other man I met. 

You should have heard him the night we 
walked together down one of the poorest streets 
in the city. He turned every few moments and 
looked back. He always walked near the walls 
of the buildings, for he told me that he was 
afraid. He knew he was suspected for all kinds 
of crimes. 

He called me Magdalen. Bill had a slice of 
poetry in his make-up, and he reasoned well. 
He told me he loved me. He would even go 
straight for me. He would never drink again. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


171 


He got drunk that night. I wouldn’t go with 
him. Bill was a liar like most men. 

A long time went by. We met every night— 
in all kinds of places. All of them as dirty as 
the first. It ended by my going with him. 

It happened one night we walked to the park. 
It was late. All the grog shops had closed. It 
was long after one o’clock. We sat upon a 
bench together. Bill was sober. He had 
washed. It was dreadfully dark. It was cur¬ 
ious the feeling of disgust I had for the man; 
yet for some unaccountable reason I was at¬ 
tracted to him. I listened to him as he spoke. 
I compared his protestations with yours. His 
were stronger. Bill was only the offspring of 
the gutter. After a while as he went on he 
thrilled me. When he unbended his crooked 
figure and shook the mass of hair on his head, 
I wondered at the man. Women, Peter, are 
curious—even more curious than men. Under¬ 
neath they love the cave man. They like 
strength and brutality. In this part of my life 
when I see with what insane cruelty this class 
of people beat and bruise their women, I won¬ 
der at them. But they do not leave—they weep, 
but they stay. 

You should have heard him as he stood be¬ 
fore me and looked at me the best he could in 
the dark. I could see his eyes flash. 


172 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


I remember each word he spoke, as if it were 
yesterday. Yet Bill has been dead years and 
years, and he died in jail. 

1 ‘You are different, Magdalen. I don’t un¬ 
derstand you. I don’t care about that. I only 
know you came into my life. You are here. 
The first night I saw you, although I was 
drunk, I knew you were my woman. I don’t 
care where you came from, nor who you are. 
I love you, Magdalen. I would do anything 
for you. How long it has been since you came 
into this part of the world, makes no difference 
to me. I don’t know if you have ever loved 
before. I suppose you have. All women love 
at sometime. You don’t know what real love 
means. I love you—I want you. I am going 
to have you. It is funny, I never spoke to any 
women as I do to you. You seem to make me 
different. I’ve lost my strength; it has died 
in me. If you were like the rest I should take 
you. I would not ask. I would make you do 
as I want. But I cannot. That is the thing I 
don’t understand. I am afraid of you. Why ? ’ ’ 

I whispered, “Yes, Bill.” 

Women are curious. It seems as if they are 
forced to listen to men when they begin to lay 
before them what they term their hearts. 
Mostly it is the animal in them. They wish to 
propagate. 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


173 


He went on as if I had not interrupted him. 
“ Magdalen, I wonder if you know that the love 
of a man such as I am, is different from other 
kinds. We never select from personal advan¬ 
tage. It is more the man. The spirit of a 
beast. We want. We want physically. I have 
thought of you a great deal. And I can’t un¬ 
derstand what it is in you that makes me look 
at you differently from the women I have been 
thrown with, but the difference is there. I 
don’t believe that you belong to the people you 
pretend you do. There is something behind. 
You eat differently. Your fingers are different. 
Your skin is different. You are beautiful. The 
people with whom I have always gone are only 
beautiful in their youth. They have the bloom 
and that is all. It soon dies. It may be the 
conditions surrounding them that causes this 
sort of thing. Tell me where you came from? 
Why are you here?” 

“I won’t tell you that. I am here. That is 
enough. Misfortune has placed me here. I 
like it. I am going to stay.” 

“Then you love me. Is that the reason you 
stay?” He shook with emotion and walked 
up and down in the dark in front of me. 

I was terribly attracted. He was a brute, 
but he was a man after all. He had been un¬ 
fortunate. And yet I don’t think that exactly 


174 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


covers what I mean. I never asked him from 
where he had come, or by what fatality he had 
sunk so low. Bill was the dregs. 

44 May I kiss you?” he asked. 

Peter, I could not—I could not! And yet I 
knew in the end it would happen. I knew as 
I looked at this creature that to him I would 
be in name a wife. I trembled with fear. I 
hated it dreadfully. Every fiber in my body 
recoiled from any sort of personal contact with 
him. I wondered whether I would bear him 
children. I wondered whether he would beat 
me tomorrow or the day after. I knew he 
would. He did. Not then, but soon. It was 
queer, Peter, that after it happened—I mean 
after I took up life with him. Although he 
beat me, he did not kill the thing in me that 
you did. He always wept, when he got sober, 
and his contrition was wonderful. Unfortu¬ 
nately this did not deter him from beating me 
later. I think underneath that even though I 
thought about it all the time I loved him. How 
do you suppose that came about! I don’t know. 
Some people say a woman loves but once. Yet, 
here I was loving two distinct persons. And 
those persons so diametrically opposed. 

It did happen. He kissed me. It was in the 
park in exactly the same place he had asked 
me before. He did not ask me. He took me in 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


175 


his arms. I struggled. I fought. I knew it 
was the end. I anticipated it was coming. I 
didn’t go with him into the park for weeks and 
weeks; yet he asked me to go innumerable 
times. At last I consented. I saw the end. 
It was written with fiery fingers on the wall. 
You know just like the words in the Bible. 
Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin! I don’t suppose 
my words I saw meant the same thing. I don’t 
know what the Bible words mean; but I knew 
the words I saw. They were burnt into my 
brain. 

Bill kissed me. He kissed me again and 
again. The animal came up in him. It was 
fearful and yet it was to me a wonderful ex¬ 
perience. Eventually, I, being a woman, lay 
quietly in his arms. I could smell his dirty 
body—the sweat of years was upon it. His 
clothes were unkempt. His shirt was open at 
the neck and he looked precisely what he was— 
a thug. 

I was close to my revenge. And yet, I was 
not getting precisely what I started out to get. 
I had failed again, Peter. I failed. I loved this 
thing—this thug. Why do you suppose that 
happened! I awoke to him. It must have been 
that unconquerable force—Nature. You know 
I hate dirt. I have always hated dirt. I mean 
immorality. And yet here I was an honest 


176 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


woman, a woman of instinct, doing this thing. 

Bill kissed me as I say. Then he breathed 
a sigh. It came from his soul. If he had a 
soul, which I doubt. 4 ‘ Come, get up. It is late. 
We will go home.” 

I got up from the seat. He controlled me. I 
could not refuse. I wanted to. I wanted to 
run. I thought death was better than this thing 
I was going into with my eyes open. I knew 
Bill. He took my hand in his. We walked 
silently through the park. I went easily. There 
was no drawback on my part. 

Down into the streets, from one evil-smelling 
way to another, through an alley, fetid with 
decayed dirt that lay in masses, then into an¬ 
other long row of old houses. This was called 
a street. It was silent. There was no sign of 
life anywhere. A rat ran across the gutter in 
front of us occasionally. I held to him with 
fear. Bill plodded on. He knew where he 
was. I was in a mist. My mind wouldn’t work. 
If it had, I should have screamed. 

How far I went I don’t know. We stopped. 
Bill dragged me into a place. It was dark. 1 
stumbled up one stairway, then up another. 
It must have been the top of the house, before 
Bill kicked a door open. He lit a light. I 
don’t know what kind of light it was; but it 
struggled to dispel the gloom. 


CLABINDA THOKBALD 


177 


I can’t tell yon of this room. I’ve lived in it 
a long time. I’ve suffered in it. But I have 
been loved for myself. I did not fail there. I 
have known real love. It has paid me from 
that standpoint. When I die I will have known 
something most women miss. I had no chil¬ 
dren. In this I was fortunate. 

My story is nearly finished, Peter. Bill, as 
I said, went to the penitentiary. I think it was 
my fault. I wished for something. He couldn’t 
get it. We had nothing. He went to get it for 
me and got caught. Bill never failed me. 

I left the country after Bill died. I am living 
in Paris. I am getting old. I am tired. But 
I don’t regret. I have had my revenge. 

I sit all day in the sun. I am always in my 
garden. I never go out. I have no reason to 
go. The outside does not attract me. 

Goodbye, Peter. It is finished. And I would 
not have had it otherwise. 

C. 


Dear Peter: 

I had decided not to write yon anymore con¬ 
cerning myself or of what has happened to me 
in these intervening years. But woman-like I 
felt that there was more you should know, and 
I did not precisely feel as if I had had the last 
word. You must forbear with me and be pa¬ 
tient. 

As I told you in my last letter, Bill went 
to the penitentiary. I went with him on the 
train. The sheriff thought I was his wife. He 
commiserated with me and allowed me to sit 
next to Bill all the way. Bill was pitiful. I 
felt for him, for it was so unnecessary for him 
to be in the position he was in. I would have 
given Bill a living but I was afraid. He would 
not have believed me. He would have thought 
that I had some other man. Bill would have 
killed me and then you would have been free. I 
never intended that. I would not have had that 
happen. 

You should have sat back of us and heard 
Bill swear what he would do after he got out. 
Twenty years! Can you imagine anybody lay¬ 
ing plans for something to happen in twenty 
years? Bill did not get out. Poor animal, he 

178 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


179 


died in the place. I buried him. And curiously 
enough I wept for him when he was placed in 
the ground. I buried with him my one great 
love. But I had learned what love meant. I 
don’t mean love surrounded with riches, but 
love that animates the breast of just a man. It 
is different. 

When he was buried and a small stone placed 
at his head, I left the country. I came to Paris 
and I have lived here ever since. I should like 
to have you see the place. It is beautiful. I 
have a great house. And in it I have one room 
with a divan and a light back of it. I have in 
front of the divan a fireplace. It is kept lit 
all the time, even in the warmest weather. I 
look into it a great deal. I build even now 
hopes and castles that will never be realities. 

I see in its blue flame, when the light is out 
and a quiet has settled upon the streets and 
only an occasional wayfarer goes by, a castle, 
and in its walls I place you, Peter—and the 
boy. I see my life as it might have been. I 
should not have known Bill. I should have had 
a different kind of love, not of the same value, 
but still I imagine it might have sufficed; it 
might have held me to my own. It would have 
done for I would not have known Bill—Bill 
the cave man. 

Have you, I wonder, ever thought of this? 


180 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


Have you ever considered how dreadfully 
wasted your life has been and how lonely? 

I have a garden back of this house. French 
windows open out upon it. Down in its depths, 
where I love to go, I have had placed trees like 
those I loved at home, greenswards of grass 
lead to paths and their borders are lined with 
flowers, almost the same kinds of flowers I 
had at home. A fountain plays and casts its 
waters into the air. I have a lodge keeper who 
bows when I enter the gates. He has a sin¬ 
ister smile. He, too, seems unhappy, but wise 
beyond comprehension, Peter. 

Underneath, Peter, I want something I 
haven’t got. I don’t know what that is. I try 
to argue the thing out. I go carefully over 
every incident that has comprised my life. I 
try to blame myself. Sometimes I can and 
then at other times I cannot. It is curious the 
condition I am in. 

I am not old, yet I feel old. I am only forty- 
odd years of age, and nowadays that is not 
age. I have no friends. I know no one. I 
must be lonely. I don’t know. 

I think a great deal of you. I think of your 
wasted life. I don’t mean from the money 
standpoint. Which is the least thing in the 
world. For I experienced greater happiness 
living in a hovel, in dirt and in squalor, than 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


181 


I did with a butler and the other servants. But 
your life, Peter, is over. You are sixty and 
more. Time is ready to take you hack into it¬ 
self and close its account with you. Soon you 
will be dead. And out of it all you have got 
nothing. I’ve followed your career with in¬ 
terest and amusement. I knew its futility. I 
knew what in your heart you wanted. You 
wanted me. And your cupidity and your phil¬ 
osophy had lost for you the greatest thing in 
your life—love. 

Do you know, Peter, that after all these years 
of separation I feel that you ought to come to 
me! That in all this world you have no one to 
take care of you. I told you in one of my letters 
to you that no matter what comes into a wom¬ 
an’s life, in her heart she lives alone with the 
man she gave herself to first. I am no differ¬ 
ent. I am only a woman, with all the frailties 
of a woman. 

I don’t believe that there is any quality in 
a woman which is stronger than the quality of 
pity. I pity you. You are such a sad waste— 
such a pitiable thing. At times, Peter, I loved 
you with all the fervor of a young mind. That 
is something. Bill was only a sporadic inci¬ 
dent in my life. As a fact he only seared it— 
burnt it with horrors that it would have been 
better that I should not have known. Had I 


182 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


not had the frailties of a woman I would not 
have gone with Bill; nature and its demands 
are too strong. Nature made me go with Bill. 
It was not of any volition of my own. If it had 
been I would not have gone. 

Tizzia is with me. I’ve had her for the past 
few years. I hunted her up after I buried Bill. 
She is here beside me. She is looking over my 
shoulder as I write to you. She and I have 
become more than maid and mistress. I hold 
to her with eager hand. It is by her that I link 
myself with the past, with you and with the boy. 
I am weak. I wobble. I am not as I used to 
be. My strength is gone. The fight in me is 
over. I have suffered, Peter—suffered terribly. 

I often wonder at the weakness of the human. 
We start with such assurance and we end so 
pitiably. I had strength. I had determination. 
I did the thing that now I know I should not 
have done and out of it I have gotten that thing 
revenge . It is only too true the words in the 
Bible—“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.” 
I have lost. I wonder what the proper course 
in life is, for what we do is always wrong. I 
tried and I failed. 

Tizzia and I talked over this thing this morn¬ 
ing and I write it hastily for fear I may again 
change and the old feeling might arouse itself 
in me and I would not put down here truly what 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


183 


I feel. There is only one thing left in me that 
is like my old self and that is my absolute 
strength for the truth. That I think is my one 
saving grace. 

Tizzia said slowly and with what I thought 
was wonderful clearness. “Now, Madame, I 
would write this. I would give Mr. Thorbald 
the chance. You would have done your duty. 
It is better. Why carry out a bad situation 
when it can be bettered ?” 

“But,” I answered, “he will think me fool¬ 
ish, and weak. After all my bragging as to 
what I was going to do.” 

“We are all weak, Madame,” she replied. 
“We are only human.” 

“What would you say, Tizzia?” I asked. 

“This,” she replied shortly. 

“The door is open. I wait for you to come. 
I will be to you as I was before. We can forget 
the past. It is over. All that we did is done. 
I am sorry. That covers with me a multitude. 
We have both lost. We should try in these few 
years left us to regain what we have lost.” 

“Is that all?” I asked. 

“I think so. It is direct,” she answered me. 

“I can’t do that, Tizzia—I can’t. I would feel 
that I had put all my entity into the balance 
and found it wanting.” 

“That has been your failure. Madame, 


184 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


you’ve weighed and you have lost in the weigh¬ 
ing too much already. You have lost your 
life.’ 9 

“Suppose he should refuse V 9 I asked. 

“It can’t be helped. Then you must con¬ 
tinue to suffer. It may be that he will. It de¬ 
pends on what his viewpoint may be. He may 
be too comfortable as he is. He may have put 
you out of his life. You may not occur to him 
at all.” 

“Shall I try?” I asked doubtfully. 

“Yes, Madame. And you will,” she replied. 

And, Peter, I am sending you this. I will 
wait until you reply. The door, as Tizzia says, 
is open. I am not hard to find. I shall wait. 
And while I wait, I shall be abased; for I can 
not know what you will answer. But I shall 
hope. 

I wonder, shall I fail in this as in everything 
else? 

Good-night, Peter. Remember, I hope. 

C. 


Weeks went into months. A winter came and 
then spring. The birds went and then came 
back. Clarinda and Tizzia lived and waited. 
But no word came from Peter. They could not 
tell whether the letters Clarinda had written 
had reached him or not. Tizzia gave up. She 
thought that the separation had been too long. 
That Clarinda had gone out of Peter ’s mind— 
that if he remembered her at all it was only as 
one remembers a dream, indistinctly, without 
placement. She had died and been buried. 
Clarinda still hoped. She could not define why 
this condition remained with her. Hope kept 
her alive. Tizzia did not tell her that in her 
own belief the thing was done. Peter would not 
answer. 

In June, on the same date that Clarinda had 
been married so many years before, on almost 
the same sort of day, the sun was bright. The 
warmth of the weather filled all the passersby 
with pleasure. The boulevards were lined with 
people. The little iron chairs that sat close to 
the iron tables were crowded. Gaiety and life 
permeated everything. In the distance here 
and there bands blared forth music. Clarinda 
sat in her garden under the shade of a pink 

185 


186 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


umbrella. There was not much change in her 
beauty. It was still there. Her eyes were as 
bright and shone with the same lustre. Behind 
them could be seen a queer knowledge. It shone 
forth in bitterness. The attitude of her body 
was different. Her figure was almost as slim. 

Her eyes were gradually closed to the light. 
A soft haze came between her and the day. She 
was soothed by the sound of the fountain that 
played beyond her. A bird sang in a tree. 
Tizzia sat close to her upon a stool at her feet. 
Peace, ineffable in its entirety closed about 
them. Clarinda slept. Tizzia watched her, not 
a sound disturbed the quiet. A gate clashed 
on its hinges. A window opened from the 
porch of the house. It swung to again and 
made almost as much clatter as the gate, then 
slowly and evenly two men walked down from 
the porch and came on through the garden. 
They came as if they knew every step of the 
way. There was no hesitancy in their advance. 
Tizzia did not hear them. She did not move. 
Clarinda sighed in her sleep. A smile crept 
over her face. She made a slight movement of 
her body as if settling herself in some deep 
remembrance. The smile on her face widened, 
and her lips spread apart showing her teeth. 
A great beauty settled down upon her. Tizzia 
looked up at her, and shook her head slowly. 


CLAEINDA THOEBALD 


187 


A new hope came into her heart. She thought 
that he might come. How wonderful. A prob¬ 
ability of joy that would come filled Tizzia with 
anxiety. She feared it would not happen, it 
had been so long. 

Tizzia sat and looked at her. Then suddenly 
she heard the steps of the men, and she sprang 
from the stool and raised herself. She looked 
up the path. Her face became pale. She shook 
with emotion. 

“At last!” she exclaimed. Tizzia advanced 
towards them. 

“Yes, we are here. It has been long. But 
we are here,” said the older man. 

“She is asleep. Shall I go to her?” 

“No!” answered the older of the two men. 
“I will go to her.” 

The younger man stopped. He looked to¬ 
wards Clarinda. His face was drawn. A great 
anxiety seemed to bear down upon him. He 
seemed uncertain as he stood beside Tizzia. 

The older man, bent by the weight of his 
years, strode painfully over to Clarinda. He 
stood in front of her. Steadily he looked down 
upon her. Her lips were still parted in a smile. 
A faint color was spread over her cheeks. To 
Peter they looked still smooth. He could only 
see an indefinite change that all the years had 
planted upon her; he saw her as she was the 


188 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


day she left him. He still remembered the 
cruelty of her words. They had burnt them¬ 
selves into his soul, and they came back to him 
with even as great poignancy as if he had just 
listened to them. 

Clarinda moved. Her hand stretched out in 
front of her as if she were reaching for some¬ 
thing. It fell to her side. The smile went from 
her face. Peter did not move. Slowly with 
effort she opened her eyes. The light dazzled 
her as she looked at the man standing in front 
of her. At first she did not comprehend, then 
gradually it broke in upon her. She saw Peter. 
Her breath came from her in gasps. She could 
not speak. 

Peter said slowly, “I am here. I have 
brought the boy. I have come for you, Clar¬ 
inda. 9 7 

Clarinda gasped. She could not move. She 
lay inert in her chair, and heard his words. 
But she could not comprehend them. To her 
they were only words. It seemed to her as if 
some ghost had stepped out of the garden and 
confronted her. Gradually as if she had been 
steeped in a tepid bath the drops of perspira¬ 
tion gathered on her face. 

Peter did not move, or say anything, but 
seemed to be waiting. Slowly Clarinda found 
her voice, which was weak and uncertain. It 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


189 


came from her in a whisper as she stammered. 

“At last it is you! How—wonderful! And 
the boy. ’ * Clarinda fell back into her chair. A 
great pallor spread over her cheeks, and with 
an effort she shook the tide from her. She 
arose from her chair, and staggered slightly. 
Peter stretched out his hand as if to stay her. 
As his hand came toward her, she moved slight¬ 
ly back. 

“No!—No!—Peter,” she said. “It is not 
for you to forgive. My greatest sin has not 
been against you but against the boy. It lies 
with him, so let him think.” 

Peter turned from her, and motioned to the 
younger man who was talking in a low tone to 
Tizzia. He beckoned to him and the young man 
advanced. He came until he stood quite close 
to his father. 

Peter said quietly, “This is your mother.” 

“You never told me, Father, where we were 
coming. I am unprepared. I don’t under¬ 
stand, I am so shocked. How beautiful she is. 
This is the first time in all my life I have ever 
heard you speak of her.” 

“Yes,” answered Clarinda, “I am your 
mother.” She turned to Peter. “Peter,” she 
said, “you are bigger than I am, and after all 
you are a man. I have failed again.” 

‘ ‘ What is done, is done , 9 9 he replied. ‘ 4 There 


190 


CLARINDA THORBALD 


are only a few years in front of me. I am well 
over sixty. You and I and the boy will go back. 
We will try.” 

The boy knelt at his mother’s feet, and 
touched the hem of her dress, then he turned 
his eyes up to her. 

“I’ve wanted a mother so much. I’ve 
dreamed of a mother, and at last I’ve found 
you.” 

Clarinda wept. The tears went down her 
face, and she did not try to stem the torrent. 

“We shall be happy,” the boy went on. 
“Never again shall we be separated. I am so 
happy! You are so beautiful—so wonderful!” 

Clarinda stretched down her hand to him. 
He arose from the ground, and she took him in 
her arms. He kissed her. It was her boy. 
The fruit of her body. 

Peter smiled. 


The End 



































































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